Using Emptiness Day-to-day For Personal Success

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[Tim: Good afternoon, everybody. I'm very honored to have you all here at this Five Houses event. We're here in service of you, on your path of transformation in service of other people. And there are so many people that make this program possible, from the ACI staff to hundreds of volunteers online. We're broadcasting in 12 languages around the world simultaneously and this couldn't be possible without you, your support. And I'm speaking not just your financial support, but also because you think this is important. I'm seeing the impact of what we're doing in this community around the world and I know some of you have been expressing some concerns, like, oh, but what's going on? But we are making those changes and I can see it happening. And I see that you have a deep, deep belief in sharing kindness with others. So I'd like to welcome you all to this wonderful event. And without further ado, I'd like to turn it over to Geshe Michael Roach. Thank you for teaching us.]

[3:08]

Hi. Thanks for coming. I know for some of you it's pretty far, for some of you it's across the street. But thank you for coming. And for me, being one of the first people who was here, along with my, I don't know, 80 friends from New York, it's very nice to see such a beautiful place. And it's so wonderful and it's grown so well. I'd like to thank Venerable Sunam, where are you? Thank you. Please live a long life. It's really beautiful. Thank you. And this is the springtime at Diamond Mountain, it lasts for two days. And you are lucky to be here in the springtime so enjoy, okay, before the wind and the heat comes. But it's a beautiful place, and thank you for that. I see more stupas crawling down the mountain. That's really nice. Cool, thank you. 

Today… well, my classes here, mainly I'll be, I think it's four days of classes. And then in the middle, we have the usual Saturday translator class and a meditation class. And my classes are divided into one class on the Devil Debates With An Angel, and then one class on the Song Of My Spiritual Life. 

And so I thought I'd start with the… we call it the Angel-Devil class, and it describes all the people in the room. No, I'm just kidding. And we'll go through… Angel-Devil is kind of a beautiful way to get ready for the Song of My Spiritual Life. So this book is by His Holiness the First Panchen Lama, Lobsang Chukyi Gyeltsen. He is famous in Tibet for having lived almost 100 years and this is in a time when people, average age was 40. And so he was pretty strange, people thought he was very special. So I think his long life came because he was so much against war, and he actually stopped a war by himself one time. He went onto the battlefield, he stood between the two armies, and demanded that they stop. And he was smart enough to bring a lot of gold with him, and he bribed the two generals and they gave up the war, they went home. You know, it'd be nice if we could do something like that. But, he's a special... I like it a lot.

My teacher taught it for several years and he never finished it. I think he got like a third of the way through it or something. And then I thought it was a shame if we didn't translate it in this world, if people didn't have this wonderful book. So I worked on it. I started teaching it in the Desert Botanical Museum, which is basically a cactus museum. My wife drags me there, and I'm just like, okay, it's more fun to watch the kids there than the cactuses. But we started there in 2011, and so we've been working on this book for 15 years. And, I don't know, we keep... I was going to, to be honest, I was going to stop teaching it because it was taking so long. And I thought, I'll just translate the whole thing and get it done and just move on to something else because it seemed like it was taking so long. And it was hard to follow it because we just did it two or three times a year.

And so I worked really hard earlier this year and I finished translating it. And then I thought it needs a commentary because it's a very mysterious book. It starts out with Mahamudra, and it goes all over the place. It's a very, very strange book. And it has many, many vignettes, or small pieces of wisdom, stories, and then it just skips to another one. And so I thought it really needs a commentary. So I wrote a commentary to it and I put it in the book after each verse. And then I finished it about two months ago and now it's a 600 page book, and I think we will put it out in... Rosa, in the summer, right? She's still recovering from this book. Right, summer? What's happening in summer, Tim? Malaysia, yeah, and Singapore. Yeah, so I'm thinking we'll release it there. And me and Rosa worked on the cover, and I would like to show you the cover, okay? Because I like the cover.

So that's a painting of the first Panchen Lama. And then that's a demon slayer next to him, an old Italian demon killer, from 400 years ago, 600 years ago. And to me, I like it. I like that. We chose the title A Struggle Against Our Tendency To Think That Things Are Coming At Us. Okay? So we didn't call it the devil... Well, you can see The Devil Debates An Angel, right? In Tibetan, it's called BDAG ‘DZIN GSHAGS ‘DEBS. BDAG ‘DZIN means your tendency to think that you are coming from your own side, and that the world is coming from its side. GSHAGS ‘DEBS means a bitter argument between two people. So it's a bitter argument between the angel and the tendency to think that things come from their own side. Okay? Which is being taught by two great scholars in the early afternoon nowadays, right? How did it go? Was it alright? Yeah, they did a good job. That's Gibson second book that he's published and it's a beautiful book, the Other Side of Emptiness. Yay, Gibson! 

That cover is a painting by Nancy Carin's son, Ori Cairn. It was done for the book about the life of Tsongkapa, King of the Dharma book. It's a painting of a dream that Tsongkapa's mother had when he was conceived. She dreamt that she was standing in a long line of women and there were two angels, like a man and a woman, going down the line. The man would ask the woman angel, is that the one? Then she'd say, no. Then they went one-by-one through hundreds of women. Then when they got to Tsongkapa's mother, the guy asked the lady, is that the one? She says, ah, now that's the one. They say she conceived that night, that he came into her womb that night. I thought it was good because this is about dependent origination, get it? Origination. I thought I'd better explain the cover. It's about the birth of things, as opposed to its emptiness, as opposed to the emptiness of things. I'll talk more about that later. So this book will be coming out in the next Five Houses program. I decided to continue teaching it. I think it'll take about another, I don't know, ten years or something, and that's okay. It's very thick, it's very, very deep. I can't speed it up because you would just get lost and I would get lost. We just have to go at our normal speed. Just enjoy it. 

Next picture, you guys.

I had trouble organizing that book. It's, I don't know, 600 verses? I just couldn't see any organization to it. It's the Angel and the Devil each talking for a while, and there doesn't seem to be ... They just decide to start arguing about something else, and it's hard to see a pattern. I worked really hard on it, and I broke it into ... I call them cantos, which is like Italian for chapters or songs. That structure was kind of used heavily by Dante, the Italian poet Dante. I thought his poem, The Inferno, is very similar in length and very similar in content, this book. So I worked really hard and divided this book into cantos. It's 25 cantos, which means like 25 themes. Then on your reading, which I hope you get someday ... I didn't finish it till last night, so I don't know why they didn't print. I suppose you'll get it sooner or later. I put the name of the cantos in the back for you guys, so you could see the structure of the whole 25 cantos. We'll be working through those cantos and then you can sort of get the flow of the book. It's a very difficult flow. The whole book is about emptiness, and it's very, very difficult and very deep. He was a great, great emptiness teacher. 

Next picture you guys.

I'd say almost the core of this book that we're going to be studying together this time is a section of 31 ways to meditate wrong. It's kind of weird that this person would spend so many pages, like 100 pages, telling you how to meditate wrong. If you would like to, you have 31 choices of lousy meditations you can do. You can hear most of them in yoga studios all over the United States. And I thought if I taught them one by one, it would be helpful, because sooner or later inside of those 31 meditations you're going to find the one that you're doing right now. I believe so. Many of us, I have found in there meditations I was doing, and I didn't realize why they were mistaken or why they weren't helpful. So, it's a very, very interesting approach of a teacher, a great teacher. By the way, he was ... To have such a great teacher teach you the wrong way to meditate… I made a deal with Tim that I would record a video and sound of 101 meditations that I've been trained in. I thought I would put the 31 inside of those. And then I always warn you at the beginning that this is a bad meditation and I want to teach you why it's wrong. Then, by learning how to meditate wrong, you can learn how to meditate correctly. 

Most of us, I don't know, I remember the first meditation I went to. I was still at university. I was probably 20. Somebody said, you want to go learn to meditate? I'm like, I guess so. They said, some guy's teaching meditation in a private house in town. It's a big deal at our university. You don't go to town, you hang out in the university. You just go to town to have ice cream or something. We didn't really go to houses in town, but I said, okay, I'll go. We had to walk a long way, and we went into this house. And I remember, I sat down, and the guy taught a meditation. It was one of those meditations where they say, don't think about anything, and close your eyes and watch your breath, and don't think about anything. I tried really, I gave it a good chance. I did the best I could. I tried to follow the guy, that's my nature. If somebody's teaching me, I'll try to do it. I tried really hard. Then when we finished, and we were all walking home, and people asked me, how was it? Did you see anything, or did anything happen? I said, nothing. I said, I didn't understand it, and I didn't gain anything from it. And I never went back. Every time someone offered to teach me to meditate after that, I was like, well, I did it already. And I avoided meditation for, I don't know, four or five years after that. It was so weird that I didn't want to meditate. That was my experience.

So I was trying to find a picture of somebody meditating wrong. What's wrong? What's wrong? His posture is wrong. If he's trying to reach some inner winds flowing up his central channel, they're going to get stuck somewhere around his back.

I had a lot of choices with my AI. I said, show me some stupid meditation. They had some guy going like this [looking up with hands in mudra of thumb and pointer finger touching], you know, and I thought, no, it's too tricky. There might be one like that. But this one, I'm pretty sure nobody would want to meditate with bad posture so I used that one. So I call this the jewel of the First Panchen Lama's book. I think this 31 wrong meditations is like the most precious thing in the book and I encourage you to go through it. This book will be published and distributed in Malaysia, maybe, right? Om Mani Padme Hum. Okay, we'll see. It's done and I think we can publish it. We have a pretty good system going now. It took us a while to get a system going. Anatole's helping a lot by editing; you guys should give him a hand. We have a nice flow going, and I think [broken video]. So she's been working really hard and I think we should give her a hand. She and her friend have a nice office space in Sedona, right? Okay, alright.

We're going to start at verse 384, okay? There are 600 verses total. We're, I don't know, almost two-thirds of the way through, something like that. I think what's interesting is that he's about two-thirds of the way finished with a book about emptiness, it's a whole book about emptiness, and he starts to talk about Diamond Way. He starts to talk about tantric teachings in a book about emptiness. I thought it was kind of auspicious that we could go through those verses since we are having also classes later in the day to prepare ourselves for Diamond Way empowerment. I'll talk more about that in the evening. But I thought it was beautiful that he starts talking about Diamond Way just when we're ready to start thinking about it.

If you understand Diamond Way, you could say that is Diamond Way. When Diamond Way comes up when you start your Diamond Way, get it? Meaning there's no coincidences in your life. Once you start practicing Diamond Way, once you study Diamond Way, once someone gives you empowerment correctly into Diamond Way, then strange coincidences should start happening, and now they are pre-happening. Okay? So the First Panchen Lama is starting to talk about Diamond Way in the middle of a book on emptiness where he's not supposed to be talking about Diamond Way, but he did it for you. He did it for you like, I don't know, many centuries ago. He wrote it for this class. Understand? 

[24:05]

Okay, so, what he says is very interesting. He says, if you can understand emptiness correctly, and if you can understand it's really the other side of emptiness, right? Gibson paid me to put an advertisement in. So the other side of emptiness, the other half of emptiness we call, it has been called, and I first heard this word in university when I took courses in Buddhism, and they called it “dependent origination”, and they gave us a whole book about dependent origination. My course in Mahayana Buddhism was a very poorly translated book about dependent origination and the Wheel of Life. Very, very badly translated, but I didn't know, and it was required in Princeton University, it must be pretty good. Now I look back and I look at it, and it was a disaster. The translation was a disaster. It's amazing that I was attracted to this terrible translation “dependent origination”. I don't know, when's the last time you heard “origination” in normal English? I don't know, “Tsongkapa's mother had a dream about the origination of her son.” And I struggled, even up until recently, to find a good translation.

The problem is, as Gibson and Rob will point out, I'm sure, that what we call “dependent origination”, what we call “cause and effect”, also applies to things which don't start or grow. They start, but they don't grow, okay? So it's not only cause and effect. When we say dependent origination, the word origination was meant, pratityasamutpada was meant, to avoid the word “grow”, because “grow” implies a cause and an effect, you see? And there's dependent things which don't start. They don't grow. They don't go through a process of growing, they don't have causes like that. They just come into being and they go out of being. For example, the emptiness of Michael came into being when I was born, and it will go out of being when I die, but it is not a thing that grows, and it's not a thing that comes to an end. You see what I mean? So whatever word you use for dependent .. whatever you're going to call it, it cannot imply only growing. It has to imply other kinds of dependence for things that don't change, okay? And mainly those things that don't change are two categories. [1] Conditions, universal truths, you know, like, I don't know, all pizza is good. That never changes, okay? General truths, universal truths don't change. That's one thing that doesn't change. And, [2] generally speaking, absences of things don't change. So, you know, the absence of a purple elephant in this room cannot get bigger or less, it's just there. It's there when the room started and it leaves when the room is destroyed, but it doesn't change. So you can't say really “dependent origination”. You can't, those are tricky words. You cannot say 因果, technically. You cannot say cause and effect because there are things which dependent originate, but they are not cause and effect. They don't grow and they don't come to a stop, okay? 

So, anyway, after much work, like… I don't know, I found my first translation recently. I taught it somewhere last week. Where is that? For DCI? YSI. It was a translation from 49 years ago from Russian, by a guy named Pupaev, about Buddhism in Buryatia and it was in the Tibeten journal. It was about the different categories of Buddhist studies, traditionally in Buddhism, which is what our translation team is based on. You know, 49 years later, our translation team is designed according to that article actually. So anyway, it took me like 48 years to ... I call it “dependent events” now, okay? And the idea of the word “event” is that it happened, but not necessarily grew, okay? Emptiness is an event, or the fact that there's no purple elephant in this room is an event. It happened. But when you say “event”, it doesn't have to imply growing. It doesn't have to imply starting small and getting bigger, okay? So anyway, Gibson, “dependent events” for now. I think it's good, I like it. “Event” is more common than “origination”, right? We can have an event at Diamond Mountain, but it didn't originate, okay? No, I'm kidding. 

So here, if you're sitting there meditating about what you learned in this Angel-Devil class and you start to understand a little bit about emptiness and the flip side of emptiness, which is dependent events, okay? If you start to understand that, then he says… here's the first Panchen Lama, okay? And by the way, they usually alternate with the Dalai Lamas. When the Dalai Lama is a kid, the Panchen Lama is older and it used to go like that [back and forth], you know? And they kind of took care of things.

So he says, if you have a good meditation on emptiness where you understand correctly dependent events, that's the finest offering you could give to the gathering or the tsok of your diamond brothers and sisters. Oh, wow. Like, he just throws it in. Like, “are you going to tsok tonight?” “Yeah.” “What are you going to bring? Is it going to be Twinkies and, you know, Mexican Coke with real sugar? You know, what are you going to bring? Coca-Cola, I mean.” You want to bring something delicious to the gathering, to the diamond gathering of your diamond brothers and sisters.

[32:04]

So “diamond brother”, “diamond sister”, on one level it means anyone you got the empowerment with. Anybody who took the empowerment at the same time as you becomes family. And technically, anyone who gets empowered by the same teacher is your diamond brother or sister, even if it was 20 years ago, it doesn't matter. And then you have a special connection with them. If you have been empowered by the same teacher, then you have a certain permanent connection with that person for many lifetimes, and for many lifetimes after that, even if you don't like them. And believe me, every diamond brother and sister has been through this, okay? And I'll just talk about it openly. Nobody else wants to, you know. “Geshehla, what if my diamond brother or sister is a real asshole? Do I still have to be nice to them?” Yes. “Do we still have a special relationship?” Yes. “Do I still have to treat them like family?” We all used to argue with our brothers and sisters, right? Me and my brother, we used to break furniture on each other, but it's just a sign of love, okay? So, anyway, don't get all weird about your diamond brothers and sisters. It's okay to say, “he's my diamond brother, sort of, you know, I'm not crazy about him.” That's okay, be honest, it's okay. We can work on improving everybody in the family. There's probably some things about you that they would like to improve about you.

But this idea that the greatest gift you can bring on the offering of the tenth, tsechu, the greatest offering you can bring is not some kind of tasty dessert or something special to drink or something like that. If you really want to make your diamond brothers and sisters happy, then walk into the room with a new understanding of emptiness, and that's the ultimate offering to everybody in the room.

And, by the way, a sign that you had a breakthrough with emptiness is that you're happy and you're relaxed and you're smiling and you're like [smiling happy]. So, I mean, that's a sign. The more you understand emptiness, the more happy you will be all the time, okay? So, that's a sign. You're going to walk into the offering of the tenth twice, there's two tenths in a Buddhist month - tenth day of the waxing of the moon, tenth day of the waning of the moon. And then you're going to walk in with a big smile and an open heart. And that means you had some emptiness breakthroughs during the last two weeks. And he's saying that's the best gift to bring to the altar on tsechu. Got it? It doesn't hurt to bring a good cake also. I'm just saying, according to my experience, it's still a good gift to bring.

I'm going to go to the next verse, 385, and he's talking a little bit about the conditions that can help you see emptiness directly. And in this verse, 385, he talks about the place of shamatha, or a deep state of meditation, to be able to go into a deep state of meditation. He wants to emphasize it.

So I had an experience, I saw emptiness when I think I was 22. And I had been to study in Asia, and I had studied pretty seriously for the year, I think, and then I came home. One of my teachers, who's supposedly the highest teacher in our tradition, told me, you should go home and finish your degree. You don't finish 75% of a Princeton degree and just stay in a hut in India, you know? Although I wanted to. And they said, no, you go home and finish your degree. So I went back, and I had a very unusual six months or something. I was telling some friends about it recently. I came back, and I was broke, I was completely broke. And I didn't have a place to stay. I already used up my four years of dormitory time because I missed a year, and all my friends graduated, because I spent a year overseas. So I came back and I was flying into Kennedy, and I thought, I wonder where I'm going to sleep tonight, because all my friends graduated and I didn't know anybody in the next class down. The only person I knew was… I was pretty active in the church, in the Christian church. And I grew up in a Christian church, and I had a good time in a Christian church, and I was an altar boy for like 12 years, I was in the choir for like 20 years. Like, I really, really had a good time, and I had a beautiful church, really beautiful church.

So I went to church at Princeton, and I was pretty close to the priest. I was doing Episcopal church, which means the priest can get married and can have kids. Princeton used to be Episcopal or something so they had a huge comfortable house for the priest and his family, next to Einstein's house. It's a cool place, and I was thinking, boy, I wonder if I could get into that house. They had two small kids, and there's the priest and his wife, and then I thought, that's the only chance for me to not sleep on the street tonight, you know. And so I got to Princeton, it was already dark. They had just built a student center for getting snacks and stuff late at night. And I thought, well, I'll just go there and see if I can get something to eat. And I used to drive a truck to deliver food for five years so I knew how to get in the back. You understand? To get to the kitchen.

So I went in and through the loading dock, and you know, and I just got something to eat, and I went andSo, I went in and through the loading dock, and you know, and I just got something to eat, and I went and sat down, and the whole place was empty. But when I got into the place, there's the priest sitting by himself, and the whole place is empty. I'm like, man, you know, and I like walked over to him, and I sat down, and I said, I just got back from India. And he said, good, good, and he says, do you have a place to sleep tonight? I'm like, whoa. I said, no, I don't. And he said, you can sleep at our house. And then he's like, we also need a babysitter, and I'm like, what's that about? He says, well, we have a two-year-old and a four-year-old, two boys, and we need a babysitter, a nanny. And I'm like, I don't know. I actually, I babysat a lot when I was in high school for my teachers, and so, in those days, the diapers used pins, not tape. You had to be good with the pins, you put like six pins in your mouth, and once in a while, you stick the kid and they cry for like two hours. But I knew how to do it, and I'm like, okay, I'll try. I was there for like six months, and I was meditating really deeply, and all my friends were gone except one, and so I was pretty much alone.

They gave me a floor, an empty floor, because it was one of these houses, like these old eastern houses, and I had a beautiful room. My mother was dying, she died while I was there.

And so I was deep into my meditations, and strange things were happening to me. I was in a deep state of meditation most of the time, and it was very amazing. So I wanted to describe it, for the first time in my life, I failed a class purposely. I had never gotten less than an A, except one B in seventh grade or something, in shop, in woodworking. I said, I have to maintain my meditation, and I can't get too busy. I can't get sucked into this university state of mind. I got to stay a little bit.. If I'm going to protect my meditation, I have to make sure I control how much I do. And so I purposely failed the class, it was an Indian music class. I didn't need it to graduate, it was extra.

Later I played a concert at Princeton, and the music teacher came, and he's like [sitting open mouthed], I'm a sitar, and he was kind of freaked out.

But anyway, what I wanted to say was, there was a sort of wisdom that I shouldn't try to do, I shouldn't overdo it, I should maintain my shamatha at all costs. And if extra opportunities came up to do things, but they pushed my shamatha out of my life, I should refuse. I should just not do them, you know. And so I was very, I had a very clear mission that I should maintain my shamatha. And I lost that, after I saw emptiness directly, I lost that for some time. I was serving my teacher for 25 years, and I was working hard for him. But I was too busy, I think I was too busy.

Then, what I wanted to do was say that I have a way of keeping my shamatha nowadays that I developed over many years time, and I thought to share it when I taught you this verse. Because he says, STONG NYID LA DMIGS SHES NAS GRUB, if you want to see emptiness, you have to maintain your shamatha, you have to maintain your meditative state of mind. It doesn't mean you have to do meditation for an hour a day, which by the way is minimum if you want to see emptiness, you must meditate for an hour a day, or you cannot. So it's up to you. But I always had trouble finding the hour, and for years I had trouble finding time. Something happened in the later part of my life that I think I should share with you, and I encourage you to try to do it.

Oh, this is the offering to your diamond brothers and sisters, okay? Get it? That's my AI. Okay, here it is. 

We call it the Good Night Book Club, you heard about it. We're not trying to advertise books, we're not trying to sell valises, those little briefcases. I've been desperately trying to sell the practice of getting a good night's sleep without your electronics, okay? And I believe personally that you cannot maintain shamatha if you don't have a regular bedtime, and a regular getting up time. And I'm talking to the minute. I also believe you cannot maintain shamatha if you're, if you cannot drop your electronics. If you cannot release your electronics once a day, I believe you cannot see emptiness. I believe that, directly. I believe you have to do this practice, okay? So I try to sell it everywhere I go, I would say mixed results.

You know, everybody is polite to me, they're like, hmm, right. And then, you know, the next day I see them and they're like [looking sleepy]. I'm like, what's wrong? I stayed up till midnight, what happened? Well, first there was a great movie, and then I had to finish my work. And then I'm like, were you in the class yesterday? Oh, that was a great class, Geshehla. And I'm like, thanks, you know? So, I'm trying again. Someday you'll thank me, that's what my mom would say. You gotta try it, you gotta do it, okay? You can see emptiness directly if you follow this practice, I believe so.

You've got all the theoretical teachings, you know, you've got 600 verses of Angel Devil, lots of good teachings there for emptiness, but you must maintain a meditative state of mind all day long, okay? That doesn't mean you don't get busy. It doesn't mean you don't have to rush to get someplace. It doesn't mean you don't have problems in your life, financial problems, stuff like that. You do, and they require your thought, and they cause wrinkles here [pointing at his forehead], or smooth places here [touching the top of his head], right John? Both of us. But, it doesn't mean you don't have other problems, okay? But, here's my sales pitch, okay? And we'll see if it works.

By the way, sooner or later you will do it, so it's just up to you, you can wait another few years, or another few deaths, but sooner or later you're going to have to do it. If you want to get out of sansara, if you want to see emptiness directly, which is the coolest thing in the universe, you're going to have to do this. Sooner or later you're going to have to do it. And I encourage you to do it now, okay? It's not going to hurt you, believe me, okay?

Why are these books coming out every day? You know, we got four or five books came out in the last two months or something. Why can Geshehla do three times, four times more work than he overworked before? It's because I'm practicing the shamatha technique, okay? So, I really, really, really beg you to try it.

Here's the system, okay? Very roughly. I was in, you know, COVID came to Rimrock, Arizona. I used to travel 382 days a year overseas. And 383 days a year I stayed home, so I could tell my wife I stay home more than I travel, one more day, one more day at home than I travel. So I told her, you know, I'm not traveling all the time, I'm less than half by one day.

So, then COVID came and I was stuck at home, and I started to lose it. I started to get bad habits. I've never owned a TV in my life. I almost never watched movies in my life. And I started to look at shows on my TV, on my computer, like, what is that? The Emperor's ... what's it called? The King's Affection, The Emperor's Affection, The King's Affection. South Korean soap operas, really good. Then football, and then I graduated into movies, and then I went to the, what do you call it? Advanced degree of war movies, and more advanced, dirty movies, unclean things. And I was fascinated. I haven't seen them in my whole life, and I'm like, wow, this is something, you know. And I was staying up later and later, and my shamatha was gone.

It's ironic, right? You have more time than ever before to stay home, and then you can't use it, you need to keep busy. So then I got to know my phone better and better. The hours got up to 6 or 7 on the phone, right? Unasked for, my phone tells me every week or something, 6 hours, 7 hours, I'm like, whoa, really?

So anyway, I was sitting there, then I know the night it was, I can tell you the night it was. I'm sorry if you heard this talk before, and if you heard this talk before and you didn't do it, that's why I'm doing it again. So it's not my fault, it's your fault, okay? Which is the way I run everything in my life. Everything is somebody else's fault.

So anyway, I got to, I remember the moment, it was 2 a.m., and this I had gotten in the habit of waking up at 2 a.m. and just watching a little TV, and I got, it was 2 a.m. and I woke up and I laid there, and I'm trying to decide if I can sneak out of bed and not bother my wife. She sleeps very lightly, it's dangerous. Then I get this thought, this philosophical problem came to my head. Your fingernails and your toenails, which one grows faster? You know, like I was like, I wonder if it's the same, or your fingernails grow faster. Mine, the fingernails seem to grow faster, is that true?

Lindsay probably looked it up. The toenails seem to grow slower, but I also don't like to clip them because it's so much work. So I thought, I don't know, maybe I'm just prejudiced, like I should check. I should ask my Gemini AI. So I got my phone out and I was checking, and then I said, what the.. What are you doing? It's 2 a.m., you should be sleeping. Your wife is asleep, you could be, even the cats are asleep with us. She sleeps here because it's so warm [touching his head], and then I'm like, how bad are you going to get? How much of this stuff are you going to watch?

So, I decided, I just chose a time, it was 10 p.m. I said at 10 p.m. I'm going to put my phone away, and I'm going to put my computer away. I heard from, what's his name, Will Duncan, old friend, from the original Diamond Mountain. He did a three year retreat, yeah. He has a small retreat center, and he turns off the internet at 10 p.m., and he turns it back on in the morning. So I thought, I'm going to do that, you know. I'm going to put my laptop and my phone in the drawer of my dresser, at 10 o'clock, and then I'm going to leave it there until I wake up.

So, I did that, and then at 2 o'clock I'm still, wake up, I'm still like, I didn't decide about the fingernail thing, and then I went to the drawer, and I got out the computer and the phone. I started googling it, you know. And then I said, god, what's wrong with you, you're really addicted. And I said, no, no, I'm not addicted. This is a sign that you're addicted when you refuse that you're an addict. That's the typical sign that you're an addict. Addicts love to say they're not addicted, and that means they are.

So, I'm like, phew, man, what am I going to do now? And so, Rosa, I talked to Rosa at some point. We made this valise, a fancy name for a bag. When you call it a bag, you can charge $3, when it's a valise, it's $17, something like that, or more, much more. Okay, but, where is that one, there's mine, okay. I carry it everywhere now, you know. We made the cloth bag to carry the valise over your shoulder, so, I carry it everywhere all the time. I keep my computer in there, and it has a special zip and a lock, okay? You can lock it. Then me and Rosa, we worked on it, and we came up with a time lock, so you can put a lock here on the zipper, and you can, I set it for 10 p.m. to go to sleep. And then I set it for 6 p.m. to get up, okay? Then, I'm sorry if you heard this lecture before, but if you were doing it, I wouldn't have to keep repeating it.

So, anyway, my teacher is in grade school, and I remember, and I'm not betting anybody about the name of the 5th grade teacher anymore. I did a, how many votes, $3,000? I said, I made a $3,000 bet with my students that no one could tell me the name of my 5th grade teacher. Of course, Word Smith remembered, and said, Mrs. Butts. And I was like, man, that's $3,000 down the drain. So anyway, I'm not betting, and her name is Butts, and she was. But, anyway, she told me, among many other lies, she told me that kids have to sleep for 8 hours, or else you're stupid, and you fail, and you don't get into college, and everyone hates you. She swore you had to sleep for 8 hours. I didn't believe her, and then suddenly, I don't know how many years later, many many years later, I'm like, she was right. If you sleep for 8 hours, and it's like magic, okay? Something happens.

In Manhattan, when I was a corporate slave, I mean manager, we would work till 2 a.m., I remember demanding to go home at 2 a.m., and everyone said I was a deadbeat. They said, you're not a real manager, and I'm like, I gotta get home. I gotta go home, it's a 2 hour bus ride. I don't get home till 4. I sleep for 2 hours, I come back. And they said, you're a wimp, you're just not strong. It was a macho thing, right? Hustle? You have it in Mexico? You gotta, if you don't work like that, you're not a real man. So I got this in my head. I thought I have to work hard to impress other people, and I have to stay up late at night to show that I'm a tough guy. I'm devoted to the Dharma, because I can work till 4 o'clock or something.

And then I tried it. I went to bed at 10, and the first night I got up at 3, because I'm not used to sleeping for 8 hours, and then I pushed it to 4, and then I pushed it to 5. And now, now it's amazing. At 10 o'clock, I get into bed. I lock up my computer and my phone. If I'm traveling, I give it to Rob. I ask someone to come and take it, the phone and the computer. And they come at 10, they know. They come at 10, and they take it, and I have to give it. And then I don't get it back till 6 o'clock. But it's a strange thing, at 5.59 this morning, I just like, ding, and I feel super fresh, and I feel super charged, and I'm just like, let me rip up that angel devil thing. I don't see why it took so many years, I can finish this in two months. And I did, after 15 years, you know, I'm just like, god, I can knock this out. 

Something about sleeping for that long, and your meditation goes off the charts, okay? If you wake up at the same time, animals do that. When I was in three-year retreat, me and Christie had a, what do you call it, woodpecker. And we had a yurt, we were staying in a yurt. Yurts don't have windows, they have flaps, and in the summer, the flap would be tied up, and the woodpecker would come to sleep inside the roll. He showed up every night at 7.00. Like animals have this thing, my cat, she's like, it's 6.05, it's breakfast time. They have this inner clock. So if you do this practice every day, you just wake up at 6.00. Like at 6.15 you're ready to meditate, and your mind is totally ready to meditate.

And I came back to my meditation. I started as Geshehla says, I started with 10 minutes, and then I got up to 15 minutes. I'm at 52 right now, you know. I built it back up, and it feels really good. So what I'm saying is, if you care about all this stuff, you paid to come here I guess, or you hitchhiked, and you worked hard to get here, and the most valuable thing you can learn here is this, okay? [pointing at the Good Night Book Club valise]

Then your shamatha will come, your meditation will come, and it's unbelievable. It's just unbelievable, you know. I'm like, I think I finished another book this morning, I'm 90% through another book this morning. I think I can finish in two more days. A whole new book, which you don't get to see until in about two weeks, okay? But it took me two months to translate a major word, and a very old word, 2,000 years old, and really hard, very very very secret, very difficult. You can do it, if you sleep, if you get a good night's sleep, and you don't have your electronics on during that time. So I beg you to try, okay?

I know it doesn't sound like a Dharma teaching, but it's the best Dharma teaching I can give you, okay? Get enough sleep, get eight hours of sleep. Put the goddamn phone away, you know. Declare independence from your phone. You could do it on July 4th, you know. I declare independence from my phone, and your computer. Then your mind is so clear, that's shamatha. You have shamatha, and then emptiness is easy, okay? If you have shamatha, emptiness is easy.

That's what he says here, okay? And I say don't wait till you're 72 or something to follow my advice, do it at 71, right? Seriously. People like Brady and Connie, they did it. They kept doing it all these years, but I lose it for time. I lose it for a year. I lose it for two years, and then you have to come back. You have to give up those things, and try it. You'll be so happy. You're here to learn to see emptiness, and to get enlightened, and that's the best advice I can give you. The rest is all just Dharma, okay? Alright, next picture.

Nagarjuna… How much time I got Tim? When do I have to stop? Okay, I can do it. I just do my usual technique which is to don't do Q&A, okay? But I'll give you tomorrow I promise, okay? Which tomorrow? Okay.

So anyway, at this point in the devil debates an angel, they talk about a thing called the seven part analysis of the pieces of a thing, I like to use an automobile for this teaching, that's in fact, that helped me see emptiness, so I'll, I'd like to teach that. But first I wanted to give you a reference for it, this analysis that the first Panchen Lama goes through. It comes from, you can find it in works by Chandrakirti in Shikshapada, versus, clarification of the verses. You can find it there. It's very very beautiful… I like the version that is found in an ancient Buddhist book called, say Malinda Paha, Malinda Paha. So 300 years before Jesus, 2,300 years ago, Alexander the Great conquered all the territory from Europe, southern Europe up to India, and he reached as far as India. His army refused to go further, why? $100 question. Why? $100, $100, raise your hand, you don't get money without raising your hand.

[student: Because if you go further, there is the end of the earth.]

And?

[student: And you can fall down from there, you will fall off.]

$100 yeah, okay. So, Alexander's troops refused to go further, they beat the Indians in a big battle in West India, and then they refused to go further. He had to turn around and go home. He sent half the men on ships from around Mumbai, and then he traced, tracked the ships on land. He went with his horse soldiers, and they went in ships, and they tried to make a new route from India to Europe. He reached Baghdad, he died in Baghdad. He died from diarrhea, okay? The whole world couldn't kill him, and samsara killed him. So anyway, his generals became the kings of India, and so there were, I don't know, maybe 20 split up India, and they became the kings of India.

So generations later there was a king named Menendra, and he was a Greek overlord of Indian country. And the Greeks had a system of having an advisor of the king who was a philosopher.

100 bucks, who was Alexander's own advisor, 100 bucks. Not the same person, don't be greedy. Who was Alexander's… Daniel was not, he was too young. 

[student: Aristotle?]

Yeah, Aristotle, nice. Before he went on his trip, Aristotle was too old to go on the trip. So he assigned a tutor to stand in for him, and Alexander murdered the tutor, somewhere around Iran. So anyway, it was a custom for great kings in those days, leaders of countries had a spiritual philosopher teacher who guided them through their life. And the most famous, well Nagasena was the one who taught Menendra. And those conversations were made into a book called Melinda Paha in Pali. Pali is a corrupt Sanskrit, Pali is a spoken Sanskrit. Hey man what's doing, so what's going. I don't know, what's he doing? But it's that, it's that for Sanskrit okay? We have that book, and we have two letters from ... Arya Nagarjuna. We never say Nagarjuna. Two letters from him to another king, who was I think the grandson of Bimbisara who made the first painting of the Wheel of Life, okay? So he's a pretty good king

There's a famous letter, two letters, we believe, I believe they're to the same king. I believe the second letter is deeper. The second letter Nick Lashaw is translating, it'll take him another three, four years I think. And the first letter is called, Letter to a Friend.

Say Suhur Lekha, Suhur Lekha, 

Suhur is a, the L comes from the next word, Lekha, which means a ladder, and then Suhurl, it's the original is Suhurd, which means a good heart. And cardiac and heart comes from Hurd, and the Heart Sutra is called, Hurdaya Sutra, the Heart Sutra, okay?

So anyway the book is called, A Letter to a Heart Friend, Suhur Lekha. Then my teacher, when I was there with him in the early years, had brought a handwritten manuscript of a commentary to this, to Nagarjuna's letter, written by the teacher of Tsongkapa. And I thought, man that's something, you know. Rendawa, his name is Jetsun Rendawa. I spent like a year typing out my teacher's translation. He had a ... later he learned English, but he still used a translator who translated his English into English. Seriously, it was so bad. So anyway, I typed this thing like for two years and it was bad. But I did it out of love for my teacher, and we finished it and it was published. But I always thought someday, if I can find a manuscript, I would like to re-translate it, because it's very very beautiful. It's stunning, the original work is stunning. So I found a copy, John Brady found a copy, it was ... it's a long story, but we got a copy, and I translated it. And, so we're going to discuss, starting in the class tomorrow, because I talk too much, we're going to go through the seven-part analysis that helps you see emptiness, okay? Seven-part analysis, it comes from ... I'm going to teach it to you from this book by Nagarjuna and Tsongkapa's teacher. And I finished it in like, I don't know, record time, I don't know why, and it's damn good, I have to say. So we printed it, and then Sunam, Venerable Sunam, director of Diamond Mountain said, Diamond Mountain Geshehla would like to sponsor a copy for every person attending the retreat in person.

[Sunam: Thank you so much for translating that beautiful book. I don't know about you guys, but I don't know, I have the feeling I have a deep connection to Rendawa, to Je Rendawa, and that's why I love this book so incredible. And then Geshehla, you also said that's more or less the book which we should teach, because it's so practical advice. I'm the person who is in their head a lot, and practical advice is always, always beautiful, so you would make my heart smile if you take the practical advice. That was my intention. Thank you so much.]

Can you hold it up? We have a good friend in Australia who is one of the early students at Diamond Mountain named Ben Christian. He painted the cover for us. You see the king here, and then we put Rendawa teaching the king by cosmic heart connection. Okay? So we have this beautiful painting on the cover, and Ben Christian did it just for this book. Yay, thank you.

If you have to teach new people, if you're ever called upon to teach new people… By the way if you sit in this class at Diamond Mountain, you are automatically agreeing to teach other people, that's a deal, that's a tradition. If you're sitting in this class, it means you agree to teach other people in your time, okay? My first class was in the back of a Volkswagen with one person, the postman, okay? So you can do it. Alright? And what I wanted to say, and then we'll break, in my opinion, this is the best possible book to teach a new person. So if you are called upon to teach a new person, I strongly recommend a piece from this book, okay? This is a wonderful explanation of the whole Dharma, by Tsongkapa's teacher, and Nagarjuna, two of the greatest teachers in history. So if you're going to teach new people, Jenny, you could have a course in Singapore, and go through the book, okay.

All right, Tim, anything? Where is Tim? Any announcements or anything? And thank you, Diamond Mountain. Yay.

[Tim: So in Rob and Gibson's class, which was amazing today, but if you missed it, you missed something great, and don't miss it tomorrow. Rob introduced this item here, it's not just an item, it's a beautiful Buddha statue. It's a Medicine Buddha statue that was made for when we did the Medicine Buddha retreats here at Diamond Mountain. So this statue hung out here for quite a while, and it's made by a group of people in Mexico outside of Guadalajara called the Huicholes. And we had these made several years ago, and supported their center. And as Rob announced, we are this close… Every retreat we say we're getting closer, so we're telling you we're getting closer to launching Five Houses, and I'm telling you we're very, very close. And in that process, there's a lot to do that we didn't anticipate, and guess what? Yes, we, we're asking for your support.

So to start, and there will be more, do not worry, if you cannot do this first one, we have a second surprise later, so don't worry. So the first, we have an auction here for this, this Buddha who's been around for several retreats, was, I'm sorry, was made by the Huicholes as well. And we're starting the bid at $5,000 for this, and we will offer it to you here, you can take it home. And if you're online, we will of course mail it to you.

And we also want to say that each year we support Casa Huichol, which is a medical center for the Huicholes. We have a partnership with them, we've been supporting their operating expenses for many, many years. It's not very much, it's about two to three hundred dollars a month, and we've been supporting them through that. And so part of the proceeds of whomever wins this auction is going to go to the Five Houses, but part of it will also go to Casa Huichol as well to continue supporting the medical needs of those people there, and they really need a lot of help. So QR codes are up, and over the next couple classes we will inform you on how it's going, and when are we done, Pachi? So we have three days for this auction, all right? So if you can find it in your heart to help, this Buddha could be yours. So thank you all very much, we have a half-hour break, and thank you for teaching.

[2:35]

All right, here we go.

So, we are studying the Song of My Spiritual Life, in preparation for an empowerment. So, this year I plan, if my doctors cooperate, to do two empowerments. One is later this month, for a friend from Asia that I've taught for about ten years, and they started the trouble about three years ago.

I was just walking through Kyoto quietly by myself at night, and somebody grabbed me and said, ‘Come to dinner’, four years ago. And I never ever go to dinner with my students, because then I can't get any sleep. But I said, all right, and they took me upstairs to some nice place, not fancy, but good food. And I remember we were sitting on the ground and there were lots of my students there, and we've, I started teaching them about eight or nine years ago? Ten years ago, something. Seventy years ago? Okay, so eight or nine years, yeah. And I was sitting across from these two little troublemaker guys. And they looked at me and they said, ‘Will you teach us Diamond Way?’ And I tell everybody no. I promised a long time ago I wouldn't teach Diamond Way again. And then I looked at them, I said, yeah, sure.

Then we saw Gyalpo Karshor. There's an old story in Central Asia about the king who slipped and said yes, and then he had to do it. So I felt like I have to keep that promise.

So, I've been preparing them. And then other people heard about it, and said, can we also join that empowerment? That, and there's limited place to put people. We're doing the first empowerment this month at Dragon's Head. There's only a seating for about 130, something like that. So, I'll be doing that, and then we'll be doing it again in October at Dragon's Head for Five Houses. Then there's too many people, and we'll figure it out, don't worry about it.

Talk to Tim, okay? Just talk to Tim. That's why he looks like he's gonna have a breakdown.

But I'm happy to do that, and I've been working really, really hard on it. I first taught Diamond Way here, like 23 years ago? 22 years ago? And I taught a, how many years, seven year course, six year course. And since then, so that finished around 17 years ago, since then, I've continued to work hard on my own Diamond Way practice, and my studies, and I thought I would like to do it all over again, a different way.

So, do it a much different way, because I've learned a lot more, and I have read many more texts, and I've been able to study it much more deeply. So I thought I would like to do a fresh version, and so anyway, that'll be in October.

This class, Song of My Spiritual Life, which is also translated by the great Gibson Chang, with me together. And we've been working, how many years, seven years or something, total? Seven? Three or four years, he's the baby translator. We translated this book, and it's a great book. It's a unique, because this is the only book in which the greatest Buddhist writer in history, I believe, Tsongkapa, describes his own life. He describes his own experience, and he never, never does that. I can't, I don't recall, and I haven't read any other text by him where he talks about his own experience. Okay, Gibson, recite it. Here we go, just yell it.

[Gibson reciting in Tibetan]

Yeah, that's what I said, okay.

De Shinkansen Lom means, he says at the end of almost every verse, he says, ‘This is the way I did it, and this is the way you should do it’. So, this is a great book, it's a very.. it's an honor to study, it's an honor to teach it. And we have been working on it for, I don't know how long, a year or something? And we're reaching the part about the Six Perfections.

So, if you are here tonight, it's sort of a very important moment in your life to hear about the Six Perfections from, I think the greatest teacher of Buddhism since the Buddha, Je Tsongkapa.

So, he's going to describe the Perfections, and to do that, these are Bodhisattva Perfections, and ever since I was in college, I heard the word Bodhisattva, and also.. Which band, for a hundred dollars. You cannot self-bet, no self-betting.

This is a short answer, it doesn't mean that.

[Rosa: The police.]

[John Brady: Steely Dan.]

Steely Dan.

[Geshela singing: Bodhisattva, won't you take me by the hand?]

Yeah, okay, Rosa, we'll do retraining later.

Yeah, anyway, I heard this name in the song, and it was like the best guitar work I ever heard.

I remember listening to it in San Diego, and I was like, wow. So I like, I think it's interesting, I think all of us are attracted to the word Bodhisattva. Somehow it feels comfortable, or it feels happy. But we don't really know what is a Bodhisattva, okay? And, it came to be, the word came to be used kind of freely.

People say, oh he's a real Bodhisattva. Why? He shared a dessert with me. You know, which I guess is the ultimate sign of a Bodhisattva. And, you know, like, we say Bodhisattva to describe a nice person. But, what I'd like to do, we're talking today, you got that first picture you guys?

I like to use this picture whenever I talk about Bodhisattvas, because I think this one picture describes a Bodhisattva more clearly than any other picture.

You can have those nice Tibetan paintings, and everyone looks very golden and everything. But to me, this photograph is closer to what is a Bodhisattva, okay? When I saw emptiness myself… By the way, I didn't tell anybody for many, many years. There's a sort of a thing, when you see emptiness directly, there's a kind of knowledge that you shouldn't talk about it much. So, it's not common to talk about it.

I didn't talk about it for, I don't know, 40 years or something. But now I'm at the age where I figure if the doctors make a mistake in the kidney surgery, which by the way, maybe, I don't know. It's all very top-secret, even from the patient. So, it's a very, very delicate procedure, and there's very many tests. I had to do 23 tests or something. They call it astronaut-level testing. So, you know, it's many, many, many tests. And, so I've been approved to have it. But, it could be six months, it could be a year, I don't know. And, they do not tell you. You just keep waiting. 

And, so anyway, I'm fine. It doesn't hurt. Nothing's wrong with me. 

It just, you got to have it ready. If it fails, then you have to do something fast. So, anyway.

So, since I have that condition, I thought, well, I should tell people about it, about the Bodhisattva experience, and about the emptiness experience. So, I'm talking more about it to people. I think one of the reasons why a real Arya doesn't like to talk about it too much, is that if people don't believe you, it's very bad karma for them.

So, you know, I don't want to cause other people to not believe me. But also if I have friends from Vietnam or something who I care about, then I want to tell them about it. And, if there's some people who don't believe me, at my age, I don't care. So, you know, I'm just like, all right, if you don't believe me, I don't mind. It's okay. And there's no way I can prove it to you. All I can say is that it did happen, and so I can use it to teach you. I can teach you what it's like, okay? So, we are reaching the part about Bodhisattvas.

In my case, and I think it's typical, I had this pot on the stove experience. If you don't know what I'm talking about, go to this class by these two great yogis called Pot on the Stove. Yeah, right? So, I had that experience. And then, within a few hours after that, anyone who really understands, anyone who sees karmic seeds opening in their mind, and sees luminous pictures coming out of their mind, would come out here [pointing at his forehead]. And it feels like they come from here [pointing at the back of his head]. They don't, but they feel, they call it, what do you call it? Kinesthetic apperception, in ballet. It feels like your leg is straight, but it's not. If you could see it, you would understand, but it's behind you. See what I mean? It's a thing in ballet. The ballet dancer will say, my leg's straight, and teacher will say, boom, you know, it's not. It just feels straight, okay?

So, it feels like the seeds are back here. It feels like they open there. It feels like the images come here, and it feels like they come down on the Pot on the Stove. And, that's something you can learn from those two dudes.

It's not what I'm going to talk about tonight, but then, within a few hours on the same day, that experience is called CHU CHOK, or dharmottara, which means ultimate experience, in the normal world, before you see emptiness. And then, within two hours, you will go and meditate, and you will see emptiness directly.

I always make a joke. It's my belief that you cannot die during those two hours.

If, if you see the Pot on the Stove, you will see emptiness on the same day. So, kind of you can run across highways and stuff, because there's nothing that can stop that person from seeing emptiness. Death cannot touch that person. It's funny, because after that, death can touch you. So, just those two hours, you're like, protected somehow.

So I did see emptiness. That's another subject.

What I'd like to talk about… And I know many of you heard it all from me already, and I'm sorry to repeat it, but I think it's worth it. I think if you hear it from an Arya Bodhisattva a few times, it will bring it faster for you. Okay? And you don't get a chance to hear that. I have never met another Arya, so I don't know.

But anyway, the way it goes is, within a few hours, you go and you see emptiness, you come down. You have a bunch of understandings, and those are called the 16 Aspects of the Four Arya Truths. There's a technical explanation of them. It's been messed up over the history of Buddhism. That teaching is messed up. It's the first teaching Lord Buddha gave, actually. But you can get it out of the text if you know what you're doing. Okay? That's another subject. We should do that someday. But, you have like basically 16 different amazing insights. Like, you see your own death. Okay? All people have to die. Normal people have to die. All of us have to die. We will all die, unless something very special happens. And, we have died countless times. We know, deep down we know what's coming. We've done it many, many, many, countless times, and we're all afraid of it. I know some people commit suicide. My brother committed suicide. But, I think it was because he was so frightened. So, I believe that everyone fears death, and I believe it's intelligent to fear death. I believe death is a terrible thing.

So an Arya, when they come down, they can see their death directly. They see the day of their death. They see, I like to say gravity will win. You know, my grandson is trying to learn to walk. I saw him the other day. He found a bookshelf, and he was, you know, climbing, getting up to a standing position. Then, he popped down on his butt again. But, he's getting close. You can see.

So, there's a period, he's one year old, I think. There's a period between 1 and 74, or 5. There's a period when you are allowed to stand and walk around, and then you return to the earth. You return to where you were, which is flat. And an Arya sees that directly. No one else sees that directly. You, you believe you're going to die. You feel you're going to die. You have not seen it. But, an Arya sees it, and they're sure. They're sure they see what's coming after that. And, I don't believe there's more than a handful of people who have seen what's going to happen after they die. 

And, that sounds a little bit sad, or something like that. But, actually, it's quite encouraging, because you know where you're going, and you know what's going to happen. And so the fear that all beings have, even animals, the fear that we have, an Arya doesn't have that fear that way. They know what's coming, and it's a pretty good death. And the rebirth is very sweet and delicious. So they are, it's just like going to bed for the night, and getting up in the morning. You know what I mean? They're not like, it's unpleasant, but they're not scared of it, you see?

(20:50) So, anyway, after you see those things, then you sit down and meditate again. Pranically speaking, I believe, there's still… When you see emptiness directly, there is prana, or chi, has entered the central channel totally for the first time. Except for, they say, orgasm, or death. So, briefly, when you have an orgasm, or briefly, when you die, the prana enters your central channel, with close to full force. But, I believe that when you see emptiness directly, it enters full force. It leaves the side channels, and enters full the central channel.

And, I believe that what happens, pranically speaking, you know, YSI speaking, is that some amount of the prana stays in the central channel until you go to bed. Okay? And it's by the next morning, by the time you wake up the next morning, it's back to normal. Okay? So, for that short time, in my case, maybe 10 hours or something, you have the prana in your central channel. And then, you get super, you get unusual powers for those 10 hours. Like, you can read other people's minds. And then, the next morning, you cannot.

So, anyway, maybe, maybe 20 minutes after you come down, in my case I was in the temple, I was in the Mongolian temple. I still know where I was sitting. And I moved, I did some prostrations, that's another story. And then, I sat down on the nearby, maybe 10 feet away, or something. And I started meditating again.

I had this really cool experience and I was deep in meditation. I was out of emptiness. I was not seeing emptiness again. I believe a lot of the prana was already gone from my central channel. But, I was going into a deep meditation. And I'll describe it to you, and I know I described it before, but I think you should hear it. And, if you hear it a few times, maybe it will help you to do it. Okay? So, then I was, I was meditating, and, my mom appeared in front of me. 

Not… I was still aware that I was sitting on the floor. Like, I was still aware that I was meditating. But, she was in front of me, not full size. But I could see her face clearly, and she felt human, she felt warm. And, we were pretty close. And then she looked a little bit worried, but not like crazy. She wasn't like pulling her hair out, you know. She just looked like some worry, you know. And, I'm like, you know, I wanted to help her.

And, then I thought… Then you communicate to this other person but without word. You don't speak. You speak in your mind and they hear it in their mind. And so I'm like, Mom, I know you have trouble. I know you are… You can say suffering, but that sounds like a Buddhist book or something. She's was unsettled. She was disquiet. She was worried about life. And she wasn't like, you know, screaming or anything. She was just worried about life. And I'm like, Mom, don't worry. You know, today I had this experience and, and I'm close. And when I get to be a Buddha, which is soon, within seven lifetimes. And to you it sounds like a long time, but for an Arya, you're like, wow. You know, zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion and now only seven more. Wow, that's easy. Like those seven lifetimes are a cinch.

Cinch?

Do you still have problems? Yes. Does the cafe still lose a lot of money? Unbelievable. And, I still have worries, you know, but not like, like I know what's going to happen. So, it's not a big deal. I don't get sad or like that for very long, and I'm like, okay. So I said, mom, you know, don't worry, I'm on my way, I'll be there within seven lives, I see it, and then I'll take care of you, wherever you are, you don't have to worry.

You know, this is all going, communication is going on mentally. I'm not talking, and she's like, ahh.

We call it uk yung in Tibetan, release your breath. You know, you're like (exhaling sighingly). She's like, ahh (sounding relieved), and I'm like, yeah, and then she starts to fade away.

And then my dad came. You know, my dad died a long time before that, and I'm like, dad, you look a little worried, you know. And he's like, (agreeing) you know, and I'm like, don't worry. Today I saw emptiness, and I'm gonna get enlightened within seven lifetimes, I am the next Buddha, you know, and I'm like, don't worry, I'm gonna take care of everything, I'll take care of you. And he's like, he got all happy. Then he fade away. 

Then my brothers came one by one, and and then my relatives came one by one, people I know, people at school, kids I used to know, and grandparents. One by one, they come one by one, and then then you start to see the neighbors one by one. Like, yeah, I'm sorry I broke your window with the baseball, but, you know, I'm gonna take care of you also. And they all happy, and then they fade away one by one. And then you start to see other people in town that you don't know. You see them one by one, and then you see people in other cities of your country. And then you see people in other countries.

And I'm talking one by one, eight billion people, one by one. And they come up, and you're like, damn man, you look a little stressed. And they're like, yeah, I have to die, you know. And you're like, don't sweat it, man, I'm gonna be there, I'm almost there, I'll take care of everything. And they're like, uk yung, and then you go on to the next one.

The cool thing after that, you start to go through all the animals on the planet. With me, it started with my childhood dog, whose name was George. We were really close, he was the psychiatrist of our family. He lived a long time, and he would always listen to the problems. And I'm like, George, don't worry, I'm gonna be a Buddha, I'm gonna take care of you, you know. Everything's fine, you don't have to worry about anything, I'm on my way.

Then you go through all the other dogs in the neighborhood, then you go through all the mice, and then you go through all the birds, and you go through all the fish in the ocean, one by one.

I looked it up on Google, which always tells the truth, and it's like a hundred billion fish or something like that. You meet them one by one, and they can understand you. You're talking to them, they're like (making bubbling noises), and you're like (making bubbling noises), and they're like (making bubbling noises). It's really fun.

Then you do all the insects, one by one, and… What do you call single-celled animals in your bloodstream, amoebas and stuff. 

The reason I use this photograph is that then you start other planets. You start with the humans on other planets, and you meet them one by one.

They say there's no end to the universe, in Buddhism we say there's no border of the universe. But for an Arya or a Buddha, it is possible to meet everyone and finish them. So you meet every living thing in the universe, one by one, and you assure them that you're on the way, and that you'll take care of them. They come up one by one. And it's not rushed, okay? It's not like trying to get through a bunch of interviews at your office, and you know, you're like, yeah, okay, okay, are you cool, and they're like, yeah, okay, I got another person here. And you go through all these people, and then..

So what I'd like to say is you do planet walking. You walk from planet to planet. You don't have this sensation of walking, you do not, I'm just saying you do travel every planet, and you do meet every being on every planet, and you, all you do is the same thing. With each person you say, you know, I'm on my way, you don't have to be so stressed out, you know, it's gonna be soon. I'll be there, I'll be there. You don't have to worry, you don't have to look like that, you don't have to be so sad. There's hope, you know. That is Bodhichitta.

And you can read about it in the book. You can talk about it a lot. You can talk about Bodhisattvas. A person who has had that experience is a true Bodhisattva, okay?

You can also, if you have Bodhichitta, the wish to become enlightened, technically you're a Bodhisattva, and that's fine. But I would say that experience, to have that experience directly, where you communicate with each being in the universe, that makes you a Bodhisattva, okay? And then, that's all, that's Bodhichitta, okay?

Chitta means wish to be a Buddha. So that person who had that experience, due, I think, to the excess prana in your channels still at that time, you have that experience. Then you come back to the, in my case the temple where I was staying, where I was sitting. And I was alone in the temple, and they had a nice carpet, because me and my teacher sweated and put it there. And it was a nice place to, right? He made it this multicolored red, green, yellow.

I said, Rinpoche, why this color? He says, you can spill butter lamp oil on it, and nobody will know, okay? But it was comfortable. I think it's probably still there.

So anyway, by the way, if you can go there, it's in New Jersey. It's like two hours from New York, and you should go. If you can get a chance, you should go, because it is a holy place. In this country, it's probably the most important place, there's nothing else to do there, trust me. Central Jersey. But to stand there, is a huge, is a very important blessing, okay?

And so anyway, came back, and that is Bodhichitta, that's real Bodhichitta. It is, of course, helps it happen, if you study the text, if you learn all the details, if you go through the Lam Rim teaching on Bodhichitta, okay, that's obviously important, and obviously affected me. It caused my experience. So I would say, you can still read Gibson's book, and it will still help you, okay? All right, that's my Bodhisattva advertisement.

Okay, next picture.

This book that Gibson finished, and which Gibson and Rob are teaching here, it's a very unusual book. You know, technically speaking, as a scholar of Buddhism, it's a unique book. Tsongkapa wrote some of the greatest books on emptiness ever written. In fact, my next project is to finish his most important book on emptiness, which is called Gomadabsa, Illumination of the True Thought. The translation's done, it's 1,200 pages. It'll be four volumes, maybe. It's done. I just have to, me and Anatole have to clean it up. So there are great books on emptiness, and that's probably one of the greatest. But the other half of the coin, dependent events, okay, we could slowly transition out of origination. Why events? Because it has to include the occurrence of unchanging things, which can still go out of existence, but they don't stop. Okay? It's very rare to have someone write a book only about that.

One such book is Lord Buddha's Sutra on the Twelve Links, the Wheel of Life. And we are working on a translation, a new translation, the translation of a great commentary by Vasubandhu from 2,000 years ago, with Sugeng Shi. That's gonna take another, I don't know, I think we could do the first volume pretty soon. But you will not find books about how things happen, as opposed to books about how they don't happen, okay?

Books about how things don't happen are emptiness books. Books about how things do happen are dependent event books. And the dependent event books are much rarer, much, much rarer, you know. People, it's sexy to talk about emptiness. It's a little dry to talk about dependent events. It even sounds dry. So there's, there's not many books about it, but this is one, okay? This is one.

Why are we talking about it, why did Geshehla bring it up here?

Emptiness books teach you to see emptiness, right?

Books about dependence teach you about love. Okay, got it?

It's very interesting, you can technically, according to Tsongkapa himself. You can master emptiness and hate other people. You see what I mean?

If you're a theoretical physicist or something, you could understand emptiness, the principles of emptiness, you could understand, and still not like other people. You see what I mean?

But the teachings on dependence, they teach you how things happen, rather than how things don't happen. So these are really important books that will help you develop love for other people, okay? 

A book about emptiness may not necessarily teach you to develop love for other people. But dependence, understanding seeds in the mind, understanding how the pot on the stove can happen, understanding that pictures come out of seeds in your mind and create the pot on the stove, means it is impossible not to understand that you must serve other people, got it?

If you see the pot on the stove for the first time in your life, you see how you must serve other people. And you have no choice. There's no possible choice.

Every seed that ever opened in your mind was put there by serving other people, okay? It's unbelievable, you see what I mean? So if you understand where things are coming from, rather than where they are not coming from, if you understand Gibson's new book, right, as part of your study of his first book, it's easier to be a Bodhisattva, okay?

If you understand where things are coming from, it's much easier to be a Bodhisattva, okay?

If you have that experience, before you see emptiness, if you experience dependence directly, you see that you have to be a Bodhisattva, there's no choice.

Everything in your life came from how you treated other people. Then suddenly you become very interested in other people for the first time, you know. Hmm, now I have to take care of other people, no choice. Got it? You understand?

If you understand dependence, you realize you must serve other people. That's all you have to do. You don't have to worry about you, you see what I mean? You cannot take care of yourself without taking care of other people. There's no such thing, it's not possible.

If you want a cup of tea, nice pu-erh tea, where does it come from? Sichuan? Yunnan. Someone gave me some coffee and said it's from Yunnan. I said, I doubt it. Then later today they asked me, how was it, Geshehla? I said, god, it was good, it tasted just like, you know, some kind of South America. And then we looked at the package, it said Brazil.

Brazil, right? Yeah, I said, yeah, I know coffee.

Anyway, but uh, sorry. If we serve other people, Yunnan will produce coffee.

(41:38) Okay, you cannot even get a cup of coffee without taking care of somebody else, okay?

If you see karmic seeds opening in your mind, for the first time by the way, they go at 64, 65, I keep saying, milliseconds. It's impossible to track, you can't see it, the movie's playing too fast. You cannot watch Korean soap opera and see the separate frames coming up, because everybody's moving and the king is deciding, well anyway… You got to watch that one, The King's Affection. Okay, I mean when you're tired from your meditation.

But anyway, you cannot get anything ever for yourself without giving it to someone else first. And when you see the pot on the stove, you understand that. So it's natural for a person who understands dependence to seek to be a Bodhisattva. It's a natural transition. Got it? Because you can't get anything any other way anyway, okay? And you got to understand that.

It's not like you have to sacrifice what you want and share your stuff with other people. That's a dangerous misunderstanding.

If you want anything at all, you must give it to someone else first. That's just the way everything works, okay? And when you see the seeds open in your mind, you will understand that. And then you're kind of automatically thrown into being a Bodhisattva. Got it? Okay, got it? Nod, otherwise I think you're asleep.

I told you the story of a certain student whose name I will not mention, who has mastered the art of sleeping in the class with their eyes open.

What's the advanced version? (nodding)

And they're asleep the whole time.

Tim, 6 what? 6:30. Okay good, I still have some time. All right, next.

So what would your life look like if you had seen emptiness directly, and you saw seeds opening in your mind? You know, it doesn't sound as sexy to watch seeds open in your mind compared to watching emptiness. But I'd say it's equal, okay? It's about equal. The implications of it are so exciting. Oh, now I can make anything happen, you know?

Once I see directly that nothing doesn't come from seeds, then all I have to do is take care of other people, and I will get everything I want.

And I never wanted money in my life. I was brought up in the hippie days. We were advanced beings. We didn't need money. We didn't want money. We wanted peace, and we didn't want people to kill each other, you know? Some of us went to jail, and we just wanted to live in a peaceful world.

We didn't care about money, and we thought people who were worried about money were kind of weird. And we said, you know, you can make enough. You can eat. You can work in 7-Eleven and still eat, if you steal the food... No, I'm just kidding. But I'm saying we grew up in a, that was our kind of an enlightened time, and we didn't think it was important to make money. And none of us were trying to make money.

But, if you understand dependence, and if you practice the perfections, you can run, but you cannot hide. That's an American expression. You can run, but you cannot hide.

The money will follow you. The money will chase you, you know? And then that problem becomes how to give it away. And I'm in that situation. I mean, I'm not, things happen in my life. Things happen where I lose things or something like that. But in general, money comes without effort, and I can't stop it. It just comes more and more. It's crazy.

I opened my bag yesterday. I was leaving home. I thought I should leave some cash for my wife, and there's like 5,000 bucks more. And I'm like, where'd that come from? You Ruskies. And I'm like, someone just slip it into the bag, you know? And it happens with much, much larger sums of money, hundreds of times larger than that, and I don't know. It's not my goal to get rich. I understand that a lot of money can be a problem. I've seen many rich people who ruined their life. But if I had money, I could do a lot of good things.

Someone came to me during the break. I'm from Ukraine, you know? You gave some money to our project to teach yoga to people with, what do you call that? Trauma, war trauma. Years ago, I gave this money, and they show up today. I never met them, and they're running this program.

What I'm saying is, if you understand seats, if you understand the pot on the stove, if you come to Gibson's class with Mr. Haggerty, and if you understand it, you could have as much money as you want, and then you just kind of give it away. And that's so much fun. You can't imagine how much fun that is, you know? It's a deeply happy life to keep giving away money, and keep having more money come, because you, when you understand money, you get more, okay?

When you understand a seed, it works better.

When you don't understand a seed, it doesn't work better.

When you misunderstand a bad seed, you feed it, okay?

If you hurt someone, and you don't understand about seeds, that misunderstanding the bad seed makes the bad seed stronger, like fertilizer, okay?

This is the time of year, spring, early spring. All of us gardeners, right? Anatole and Aisha have been helping me with that other guy, the real worker. He's good now. We fed my roses last week, you know, and it's complicated. How many different things, like ten different things, right? They like Starbucks coffee grounds. They like magnesium sulfate, makes the collars grow better. Bone meal, you know. They like all this weird stuff, okay? And if you understand it, this is the time of year when you feed the roses. And then you just lay, you just relax during the summer, and they grow, and they're stunning. They're stunning. If you take care of them now, when everything's cold, and dark, and unhappy, everything's dead, and you prepare for the summer now, then in the summer, it's stunning. You know, my house, right? It's just sitting in among this jungle of flowers, and it's so beautiful, okay? Your life is like that, okay? Just plant at the right time, put the fertilizer at the right time, give to other people as much as you can.

Don't be irresponsible, okay? You have to feed your kids, you have to pay your rent. If you don't pay your rent, you won't have a chance to be a Bodhisattva at that house. You'll have to go somewhere else. It's your responsibility as a Bodhisattva to take care of your basic needs without, you don't need…

Someone told me they'll buy me any car I want. Two people told me that, and I'm like, I'll take a Porsche, what's that called? Cayenne, I'll take a Porsche Cayenne. I once rode in one. This is a Porsche SUV. I rode in Shenzhen, I rode in one. What's that area called? The, yeah, yeah, I was there, I got to ride in the car for 10 seconds, but I never forgot it.

Somebody said, I'll buy you any car you want, you know. So I said, okay, I'll do it. And usually I say no, but I said, my car's getting kind of old. I said, okay, I'll take it. And I said, well, a Cayenne is two hundred something, a hundred and fifty thousand. Then they sent the money, then I bought three cars. I gave away two, and I kept one. So, I mean, I gave away the old one, I bought two new ones, and I gave those away.

And I'm turning over the money, you see? I'm preparing for my next car, you see? Then I'm gonna ask for a Rolls Royce or something, okay? But what I mean is, if you keep giving, every time you get something, then give to three, four people. Give it away to other people, and then this happens, okay? And I'm not bragging about it, and I do have bad days. My cafe is losing a healthy amount of money. But I, in general, I never wanted money, but it comes by itself. I don't ask, I don't seek it, it comes. And then I recycle it, you know?

And in the meantime, that's a very, very happy life, to keep giving to other people, you know?

My cook, no, sorry, the cook and receptionist at the cafe, they lost their rent, they lost their house, you know? I'm like, don't worry, I'll buy a new one for you. And I think we're closing the deal tomorrow, right? I think, and we're still doing inspections for roaches and stuff. But I'm just saying, if you can do something like that, it's so fun, and it's so happy to… I'm not giving it to them, okay? I'm just letting them stay there, okay? But to be able to do that is nice, okay? Just to… And what I'm saying is, if you understand how the seeds work, and you're a Bodhisattva about it, you… By the way, you don't have to see emptiness to act like a Bodhisattva, you just have to know the principle. You will get what you give, and there's no exceptions. That rule has no exceptions.

On the one hand, you will never get anything if you don't follow the rule.

On the other hand, that money will chase you down the street. If you give to other people, they will chase you, you can't escape. You can run, but you cannot hide. That's an American expression, okay? And it's fun, okay?

Alright, next picture. I’ve got six minutes, okay?

Yeah, so after I saw emptiness, when you come down within a few minutes, you think to yourself, how can I remember what happened to me? For the rest of my life, how can I remember what happened to me? And then you say, what's the closest thing in the normal world to emptiness? And the answer is always the same. It's a diamond, okay? Diamond is the closest normal object in the world to emptiness, okay?

Is it close? Not at all. 

Is it closest? Yes. Okay?

And that's a funny thing, you know? I started a diamond company secretly while I was working in the other company, which is illegal. I mean, it was against the rules, and I failed a lie detector test about it, so that was the end of the company. But I was gonna call it Near Diamond, because diamonds are close, but not the best, you see? Then I decided to put my wife's name on it.

Her maiden name is Hancock, so guess who owned the house before that? Hancock, yeah. 

Anyway, so diamonds are important for a person who has seen emptiness, and I knew at that time I had to work in the diamond business, and I had to touch them as often as I could. So, you know, that's why I went and helped to start a diamond business, diamond jewelry business. And I didn't know anything about diamonds. It's very similar to trying to join the mafia, you know? Like, I got thrown out of 30 stores before I found someone to work with, and so it was very hard. But for a person who has seen emptiness, diamonds are very important.

I'm sure that's why the Diamond Way is called the Diamond Way, and I'm sure that's why the Diamond Cutter Sutra is called the Diamond Cutter Sutra, even though there's no diamond, there's no diamond ever mentioned in the Diamond Cutter Sutra at all. The word isn't in the whole sutra. 

Why they call it the Diamond Cutter Sutra? Not the Diamond Sutra by the way. Okay, Vajrachetika, cutted diamond, because diamond is close, but not the best, okay?

By the way, we're gonna have a program. We were, Rob Haggerty and I spent three months working on my schedule for 2026, and it was very, very, very difficult. It's 500 days of work to schedule for this year. It's impossible to get less than 500 days of work.

So we counted everything, we both had a breakdown, and you know, but we did decide to go to Singapore, and we decided to go to Malaysia for DCI, and those are both DCI programs, right? Oh sorry, Malaysia is Five Houses, sorry.

The reason I mentioned it is before that, we will have a DCI program in Xi'an, China. Xi'an is kind of in the middle of the country, it's not a major city, it's a small city in China, like 10 million, really. And they say, oh, why are you going to a small city? And Xi'an is important because it was the capital of the Tang Dynasty. In those days, it was called Chang'an, and 1,400 years ago, it was the greatest empire in the world .And in that year of Tang Taizong, during his time, London had 50,000 people. Xi'an had, Chang'an had within the city walls a million, 20 times larger. The empire was 20 times larger than the British Empire.

So anyway, we're going to go there, and we're going to have a program there because, for one thing, Xuanzang's Tower is there. The tower that the Emperor gave to this great translation team, all these nerds like Gibson, and then the teacher was called Xuanzang.

He walked for 17 years through India. He came home with, I don't know, a thousand books, and those are the basis of ancient Chinese classical wisdom. So we're going to go there because the tower is still there. I think it's a blessing to have a program, even in a small city of 10 million, where the tower is located there. And also there's the shrine of Kumarajiva, who was an earlier translator. He translated some of the first sutras, Heart Sutra, Diamond Cutter Sutra, and Khotan, I think, Khotanese, I'm not sure, West, West, West China, at that time, they spoke some Indian languages there, and so he knew Sanskrit. Then he was stolen by the Chinese Emperor. That's another story.

But he once claimed, when he was alive, that if he had never spoken, if he had never said a mistaken word in his translations, then when they cremated his body, his tongue should not burn. 

So when he passed away, they did burn his body, and his tongue was sitting there at the end, and they put it in a shrine, and you can go see the shrine, and I love that place. It's a quiet little shrine, kind of close to some mountains, and it's very beautiful. So anyway, that's also Xi'an.

So if you have time, since we're on the subject of diamonds, we're going to be going there, we're going to teach the Diamond Cutter Sutra there, Diamond Cutter DCI course, course seven, which is a practical guide to emptiness, okay? When I teach DCI, and when I teach to my DCI students, and my DCI teachers and organizers, I never teach from a Buddhist book. I teach them how to use it in their real life. So it's a whole different thing, and I've been very careful for 17 years to follow this method with them, and they are doing great. They're doing amazing. So you know, if you'd like to come.

They did a cool thing. Jasmine's on. I know Jasmine's listening. No pressure, but she came to me last week. She was here, and she said, Geshehla, my students took some of my hair, and there's a laboratory that turns it into diamonds, real diamonds. Do you want to do it, Geshehla? And that's what happened to my hair. So I got a hair cut with her, and so I'm gonna try to give away those diamonds at Xi'an, okay? So that's an extra, extra incentive, okay? And we'll talk more about it in Xi'an. If you'd like to come, you're welcome to come, okay? I think there will be online, in Asia at least, if you want to listen to it online, okay?

All right, now you have to experience dinner directly, I hope, and it will fill the emptiness. Okay, don't forget to share, okay? All right, see you tomorrow morning.

I promised you guys, they mention in the book the seven-part analysis. And so, you know, it's my job to tell you about it. This is mainly, I think the most important thing here, and I have to slow down and not talk so fast.

Say, rikpa.

Thayepa.

Rikpa.

Thayepa.

Yeah, and this is a very interesting thing in the Madhyamika. In the Middle Way books they're trying to define a high quality student, a very intelligent student. And they say, for this tradition, Buddhism, the one who is interested in the rikpa thayepa.

Rikpa means reason. And thayepa means infinite. And it means someone who enjoys hearing a new reason why things are empty.

You see what I mean? So, you know, and I've had many people come to class and say, this is too complicated, you know, can you keep it simple? Or something like that. And it's not our tradition. Our tradition is ... In our tradition, the high quality student wants more reasons why things are empty.

And it is possible to give one reason which is correct, and the person will understand it, that's okay. It is possible, but it's not likely. Usually they need ... You know, the teacher has to present like a hundred different reasons why things are empty, and then the student will ... they'll finally get it on the fifth one or the 500th one. They will say, oh I get it, you know, okay, I got it, I got it, you know. So, it's a tradition to keep talking about more reasons. Now, if you want to earn I BA'I.

What's I BA'I? $100. 

Ah ... I forgot the question already.

Yeah, what would be the second reason to try to learn more proofs for emptiness?

One is so that you could learn it more clearly and more strongly.

[student: So, you could teach more efficient to other people.]

Okay, yeah. We say ... toolkit. Your toolkit. You know, and like when you're ... This guy comes to my house every day to fix my house, which is never-ending job. Mark Solustro. And he's got these big toolkits and he's got everything in there, okay? So, if you're going to be a teacher, you have to have a big toolkit. You should have many kinds of emptiness in your pocket. And some is going to fit the person and some is not going to fit the person. So, you got to have many kinds of emptiness. You got to have many ways of explaining it. Even if you don't like them so much, you need to have those tools, okay? So, you have to listen to all the tools.

Here's seven more, okay? Here we go.

And I had trouble with this one. I remember I had trouble with this one. My teacher liked to use a car. And that's kind of my generation, you know, in America, is that we ... We had car, you know. Car is pretty much the definition of America, right? And we ... I don't know. We built race cars when I was a kid. I met my wife when I was building a race car. So, that's a long story.

I was under the car building it and she came to my house and I couldn't see her, but I saw her leg go out of the car, like that, and I was like, Hmm. Don't tell her, okay?

So anyway, we use cars a lot in America to explain these things. Car. And we talk about CHI CHEDRAK a lot. And to me, my teacher, just before I saw emptiness, my teacher was teaching me logic. And I had a lot of trouble with it and I didn't like it. And he also couldn't speak English very well. He's like, CHI, big, many, thing, go, parts, no, no, empty.

And I just, I couldn't understand him.

And he was trying to explain logic. And he had been, he was 65 at that time, and he had been learning, 55, sorry, and he had been learning English for like two weeks. And it was terrible.

And I remember, I couldn't understand why he was teaching logic. I didn't like it. And in my university at Princeton, my department is a religion department. But there are so few students interested in religion that we have to share the department building with the other department, which is philosophy. They are worse. And they're always walking around like this (making spaced out facial impression). You know, and you can tell a philosophy major, he's like, you know, and you say, hi, good morning, and they say, maybe, I'm not sure.

They always think too much, you know.

Then I didn't, they were studying logic, and I was like, I don't want to do that, you know. And then my teacher forced me over and over. And then I was living in a garage. I was living in an old car repair garage, like 50 years old. And it was broken, all the windows, the doors are broken, and I sleep on the floor, on the cement. And there was one drunk Mongolian old man with me. We sleep together. I mean, on the same floor. And then one night he went out and walked into a car and killed him. He got killed. And he was very drunk all the time, you know.

Then I remember I was walking home to my garage. I looked it up online, it's still there. It's leaning now. The whole garage is leaning over. We should make a temple there or something. The leaning tower or something.

Anyway, I remember, I was kind of upset, and he was trying to teach me logic, and I remember there was a tree between the garage and his house. And I stopped under the tree, and I leaned against the tree. I remember, and I said, you know, either I quit and go home, or I stay here. 

If I stay here, I have to learn logic. So, I decided, you know, I will learn it. I will learn it.

And I worked really hard. I killed myself. And it's beautiful.

It's fantastic for emptiness. And that, I think, helped me to see emptiness. Because he was trying to teach me CHI CHEDRAK.

CHI CHEDRAK means, what do we call that? Quality and characteristic, okay? And that's a deep subject. It's a difficult subject. I'm not going to try to teach it today, right? I'll teach a little bit, okay? 

But I think it helped me to see emptiness. I believe that. And it's difficult.

So, people who study DCI, you heard it a couple times, in Level 7. And we'll teach it in Xi'an. 

And, again, I wanted to mention Xi'an, the old capital of China. And it is a, I believe it's a holy place. I believe if you go there, and you see those buildings where the ancient translators worked, I believe it's a big blessing.

So, I was wondering to myself why foreigners don't go there so much. I think they should. I think it would be a big experience, you know? So, if you have time, you should come. Try to come.

Who do you talk to? It's already sold out the first day. Just go there and crash it.

I would go if I was you. DCI online, but just go and we'll figure it out. If you get there, I'll figure it out, okay? Okay, so anyway, in general, there's different kinds of CHI.

CHI means general. CHEDRAK means specific case. Usually like set and subset, like all the chairs in the universe. And then these are one kind of chair. So, all the chairs. Chair is CHI, and CHEDRAK is the one that your pigu is on.

Okay, that's a specific chair. And then there's the category called chair, okay?

To make it simple, you can't sit on the category chair, right? That's just the idea. All the chairs in the universe, right? There's a thing called all the chairs in the universe, and it's a big, in mathematics you call it a set, and it has members, you know.

So, big chair, chair as a category, chair as a word also, is a big thing, and it just means all the chairs in the universe.

By the way, you can say that that chair is a name, right? And you don't use ‘a’ or ‘the’ in English. You don't say, about all chairs in the universe, you don't say a chair, or you just say chairs. You never use ‘the’ or like that, you just say chairs. Chairs means all the chairs in the universe, and listen, that's an idea. Okay? That's actually an idea.

It's not really, you know, anyone can go see all the chairs in the universe. It would take a little bit of time. You know? It's just an idea of chair.

You can say chair, and in English, when you put quotation mark on it, it means the idea of chair, you know? And then this is a chair. This is one chair, okay? And this is not an idea. This is a real chair. This is the one you put your butt on. Okay?

And what Buddhism says is, it is an idea. Okay? And that if you think this chair, a chair, is different from chair, then you don't understand emptiness. 

It's very interesting, okay? And you got to cook it. When we look like that at my teacher, he say, you cook it. You have to cook it.

I'll say it again.

We tend to think that all the chairs in the universe is an idea, or a word. You can say chair like that (making exclamation marks in the air). Okay? Concept.

And then these are a chair. This chair is a real chair. You can say real chair. It's the real thing.

That's the concrete. That's the real thing.

And what Buddhism says, what Nagarjuna says, is that this is also a concept.

You're sitting on a concept. Okay? It's the same as a ... It's not much different from the big chair. Okay? And you can think about it, okay? If you want countless ways to think about emptiness, thayepa boni, rikpa thayepa, think about that sometime. Okay?

And I used to have my students, I remember in Germany one time, I don't know who was there, we went out and looked. We drove a car, we asked permission from the hotel, and we drove a car across this beautiful lawn and parked it in front of the class. And they let us. I don't know why they let us. And then I was trying to convince the students that this was an idea. And it was very helpful, I think. Okay?

There's a big difference between your car and car, or cars, right? But there's not. Okay?

Your car is an idea that's coming out of your seeds in your mind, according to $100, according to ... according to ... 

[student: Arya Nagarjuna.]

No. I mean, that's also true.

[student: How you treat other people.]

Yeah, how you treat other people. 

And that's a very, very, very, very important thing. All Buddhist philosophy is based on ethics, how you treat other people. Okay?

The existence of a car is based on how you treat other people.

And I don't think there's any ... I don't think there's any system that really says that so clearly, right? I mean, there are many systems that say you should be nice to other people, you should give away the things that you have, you should share what you have with other people, right?

But to say your world is coming from that is kind of radical, you know?

And by the way, if it's true, then the only choice you have is to take care of other people. You don't have any other choice. It's not a question of philosophy. It's a question of whether you want to eat tomorrow. You know? It's very interesting, okay? It's your life. Or your life will stop.

So, anyway, this mind has seeds in it, the seeds open, they create pictures, the pictures come out of your mind, and they create the car. The car that you see, the car that you drive, is not so different from ... car. You know, all the cars in the universe, okay? It's not so different, okay?

No, Geshehla, you can sit in it, it can break your leg if you stand in front of it.

Yeah, you will get an idea, luminous images of a broken leg. Really, the car didn't break your leg, the luminous images broke your leg. Got it? One came before the other, but they were not causing a thing. They were not causing ... the car didn't break your leg. Your luminous images broke your leg, because you hurt something before, you heard somebody else, okay? Lots of people get hit by a car and the car breaks. Okay.

Anyway, here we go to the seven, alright? Number one. 

Is a car not its parts? Okay? These are the seven choices, these are classical, these are from Chandrakirti, okay? Is a car not its parts?

Then, I don't know, you could take off some of the parts and see if it's still going. Okay?

You know the old story. My teacher ... This is a fun story. When you study with a grandpa, they're always telling stories. Because the grandpa is old and understands you only remember the stories. 

He came to me and he said, my watch broke. And I said, I'm sorry. And he said, you fix it. And I'm like, Rinpoche, I don't know anything about fixing a watch.

He said, you read the back. And it said, made in the USA. And he said, you from the USA? Yeah. You fix it. That was his theory.

Then his car broke one day. He's like, this car, you fix it.

You know, so I tried, I really tried hard to fix it. I bought a book, How to Fix Cars. I worked on it for six months. I took it all apart. Anyway, that's another story.

So it seems like all the parts are in the car together. And this, Nagarjuna says, no, the car is ... You can say, maybe you can say it's all the parts together, but you can't say it's something else, right? It's not something else. All the parts together are car.

Number two. Is it the same thing as all the parts together? Is the car the same thing as all the parts together?

And if you're not talking about ... Listen, okay? This one doesn't make sense. Okay? Normally, it doesn't make sense. If you don't know about luminous images coming out and seeds are planted by how you treat other people, which is your next mantra you should do at Diamond Mountain retreat, you know, if you don't know about that, the second one, it's correct.

The car is all of its parts together. And I broke one part, and the car didn't work. I can tell you.

Then the real mechanic had come and fixed the one part. And then it worked. All the parts are there.

So the second one is difficult. All the parts together are not the car. Okay? That's difficult.

That's disturbing to me. When I heard it, when he taught it to me, I was uncomfortable. He's like… I was waiting for something mystical. Like he goes, ooh, emptiness. And I go, wow.

He says, the car is ... He said, I'll teach you emptiness.

Yeah. Okay, number one. Is the car not all its parts together? I'm like, no.

Then he says, is the car all the parts together? I said, yeah. And he says, no. And I'm like, I don't get it. I just couldn't get it.

Then I said, well, let's skip to number three.

Number three. 

Does the car itself have the parts of a car? Itself.

Is the car itself different from the car?

Is the car itself different from the car? I don't think so. Personally, I don't think so.

It's not a tree. You know? When you say ‘itself’. I mean, I'm not talking self-nature or all that. I'm not talking Buddhism. Just, can you say the car is itself? Yeah, it's not a fish. It's not a lobster. It's not a pizza. It's a car. Okay, so that one's trouble.

Number four. Can you say the car depends on its parts? Does it rest on its parts?

I think you can say that. You know? That implies that the car is different from its parts though. You got to be careful, right?

Do you depend on your parts? Yeah. So you're not your parts?

I didn't say that. I depend on my parts, but I am also my parts. Okay? I mean, normally we say that. Okay?

Normally we say, Michael depends on Michael's parts. Michael is all of Michael's parts put together. I don't have a problem with that. I don't know what these emptiness guys are trying to prove. You know? It doesn't make sense. Is Michael all the parts that Michael put together? Yes.

I lose some parts (pointing to his hair), but I'm still Michael. Okay? It's alright. I don't have a problem with it.

Number five. Do the parts depend on Michael?

In a way. I mean, if Michael wasn't in the room, my finger wouldn't be here. Right?

My parts kind of depend on me. I think so. You know, if I'm not here, my feet don't get to come here. Right? That's okay. I don't have a problem with that.

Then six and seven get weird, okay? More weird. Did we do six? We didn't do six.

Michael cannot be all of Michael's parts together. Then that one really doesn't make sense. Of course I'm all my parts together. Once in a while, a doctor pulls out parts and changes them and stuff. I'm still here though. The main thing, the main car is still there.

Last one I really don't like. 

When you put all the pieces of Michael together, is Michael the outline of Michael?

Like the general shape? Is that Michael? They threw this one in, number seven. Somebody threw it in a long time ago. So, it makes some sense. You see an outline of Michael. You see a light in the dark. There's a light. Then someone comes in the door and it's a certain shape. You can say Michael came. You can say that.

Is it Michael? Is the outline Michael? I don't think so, but it's part of Michael and it's an identifying part of Michael. My outline has a certain shape and a certain, you know, my Chinese friends say I have a big nose. Okay. It's true. Irish. In Ireland it's very good.

Okay. Those are the seven. And I, maybe I was lucky that my teacher didn't speak very good English, so I couldn't ask him many questions about it. You know, I was like, I don't get it. He's like, work harder. I'm like, can we talk about this? He says, I don't know how to talk.

I was his translator also. People ask me, did you ever translate for your teacher? I did. I always translated for him when he had, when he saw people with problems, he forced me to sit there. And then he'd say, what are you saying? And I said, he has a problem with his girlfriend. I don't want to talk about the details. He's like, oh, okay, I get it.

So, I would translate his English for them and translate their English to him. And like that. But I couldn't ask him more. I had to fight. I had to struggle with those ideas. And to be honest, it was during that time that I saw emptiness. Because I understood there was something important there. 

I don't like logic any more than you do, Ben Kramer. It's hard. It's difficult. When you come to a translation class, two of our translators, two out of the twelve are working on logic texts. I mean, it puts everybody to sleep. If you have trouble sleeping, come to the class. Okay?

But it's very, very, very important. Okay? And there's a reason why it's important in Buddhism. 

There's a reason why we spend so much time on it. Okay?

It's the only topic that in the Geshe course for 25 years, you study it for three months every year. It's the only topic you study every year. One quarter of the year you spend on logic for 25 years. It's beautiful. It's very beautiful.

Okay. I'm going to go through the list again. And I want you to ... Can I afford to give a hundred, seven times? Yes.

I lost a lot of my income this month. I lost over half my income this month. Something happened. 

But I'll do it anyway. Okay. Some trouble happened.

Okay. Explain it to me with ... Explain it to me with luminous images. Okay? I'll give you a clue.

Alright? I'm saying I'll give you a hundred dollars. I'll give you one of the seven. I'll go through the seven in order. And then you tell me how you think we could explain it using luminous images. Okay? And why it makes sense if it's referring to luminous images. Okay? You ready? I hate people who raise their hand before I ask the question.

Okay. Number one. Let's do it easy way. Is the car all of its parts together? Yes or no?

[Kadrin: No, if there is no luminous images, which are coming from your mind?]

Hundred dollars. Okay.

Is a car all of its parts together? And then the trick, okay? What you have to say is what she said, Kadrin said. Excuse me, you're asking me is the car all the parts of the car together?

Yes, that's what I'm asking you.

Oh, are you talking about parts that come from me? Or are you talking about parts that come from the factory?

Oh, I'm talking about parts that come from the factory.

No, the car is not a collection of parts.

Okay? That's a Buddhist answer. I'll say it again.

Someone comes up to you on the street. You meet somebody on an airplane. Handsome guy. And he says, I have a question for you. And you're like, yes?

And he says, is a car made of all its parts? And you say, well, you have to tell me what you mean by parts. Do you mean parts that don't come from you? Or do you mean parts that do come from you? And he says, I don't know, just parts. Then you have to say, no. A car is not its parts. Okay? All right? If he said, is a car all the parts together of parts that are coming from you, can you say yes or no? Yeah, then you can say yes. It is.

The car is all the parts of the car together, if you're talking about parts that come from me. By how I gave rides to other people who had to go to Tucson and buy their kind of popcorn. Four hour trip. Okay?

By the way, I'm not saying that's a virtue. All right? But I'm saying, that's the trick here, okay? Then you don't get a headache.

Is a car—you ready? $100 again? Does a car have its parts? Yes or no? $100.

[student: Yes, the car does have its parts if the parts are my luminous images coming from how I treated people in the past.]

Who said that? Now, listen, sometimes, a person gives a $200 answer. I asked Rob, how's your class going? He says, well, they were kind of sleepy to start.

And then what happened? Then I started handing out $100 bills, and they all woke up. I'm like, see? That's teaching. All right.

Could the parts be there without the car? By the way, still you can answer it the same way. Can the parts be there without the car? Up to you Rob.

[Dinara: Yes, they can exist without a car if those parts are coming from my luminous images of how I treated people in the past.]

I guess you could say, is there such a thing as an auto parts store? And there is such a thing. Okay, okay, you get the point. I'm not going to invest more money in this one.

You get the point, okay?

And listen, if someone doesn't tell you that we're talking about luminous images, you can study that for 10 years, and it won't help you at all. Because it doesn't make sense. It's just crazy.

A car is not made of all its parts?

And there have been whole countries of Buddhism who never heard about the luminous image thing. And the poor guys sat generation after generation staring at the wall trying to figure it out.

There's no answer. They were right, not the teacher. Okay? They're like, it doesn't make sense.

And the teacher's like, no it does. But the students were correct. It didn't make sense.

If you don't mention luminous images coming from how you treat other people, all those Buddhist arguments don't make any sense at all.

And somebody should stand up and say, that doesn't make sense. Because it doesn't make sense. Okay, got it? Alright. Next picture. 

Yeah, I love this picture. 

A couple weeks ago we had the 10th anniversary of the translation team, okay? And in 1975 I wrote a proposal for the Library of Congress, for the American Library to translate the great books of Buddhism with 12 people. Each one doing a different dialect of Buddhism. Different century.

And they said no. But I kept the dream. I kept it for almost 50 years. And I started it. I tried again 10 years ago. And I collected 12 fools, I mean scholars. Right Tim? And I tried again. And we did it. You know, we finally did it.

And it's very slow and it's very difficult. But now all the books are coming out. A lot of those books took 5 years, 10 years. Tim's book, if we go on schedule, which we're not, will take 52 years? Something like that. He's going to be an old fart by the time we finish.

Okay, so the bottom picture was the original classes we had 10 years ago. Like, Stanley looks young, right? And then up above is grandpa has gray hair, lots of gray hair. Who gave me the gray hair? It's the people standing around me. And that's Xuanzang’s Tower modeled in the front of myself and Veronica. Okay? That's what it looks like. It's very beautiful. You should go sometime. Did I ever say that? By the way, I won't go there very often, so it's a good chance to go. Then before you come home, go see Dunhuang. How many hours? Hour and a half? Yeah, it's just a little flight from Dunhuang, which 700 caves where people meditated 1,400 years ago and wrote 60,000 books. Okay? And they were hidden in a secret cave, and it was found, those books were found. We're using one of them for the empowerment this month. We're using one of those texts. Okay? It's very exciting. Okay, so anyway.

The next verse by Lobsang Chukyi Gyaltsen, he says, you should honor the people who are supporting you. Okay? In Buddhism, for many, many years, it's been based on support.

In fact, when they make a list of the requirements of a good retreat place, the last one is, you better find someone to pay for the groceries. Like, you can't do a retreat, you can't have Dunhuang caves, you cannot have 700 caves. When I look at those 700 caves, I think about all the people dragging groceries up there, you know. And it's hard, and it costs a lot of money. It's expensive to be a Buddhist. To do retreat here, you know, it's cheap, we don't charge much for the place, but you still have to buy groceries, you still have to get here, you cannot work during that time. You know, it's hard. Kind of, we depend on sponsors. And this, in my country, we never had any tradition of Buddhism. So, there's nobody. You say, would you like to sponsor a retreat for me? What's that? Oh, you just buy my groceries for three months. They're like, nah. So, there's no custom here. There's no tradition here. It was very hard when we started this place. It was really hard. It's better now, but it's still, the custom doesn't exist here.

So, anyway, the translators, it's expensive. I told them, if you join, I will pay your salary. I will pay you to sit in the room and I will teach you. And we paid a good salary. And that budget is about a million dollars a year. Okay, the budget is 880,000 before the little costs, like lawyers and stuff like that. So, anyway, it's about a million dollars. And what he's talking about here is very interesting.

He says, as a practitioner, as a meditator, your responsibility is to work hard. Because every hour you meditate, someone else is growing food, working in the field, driving the truck to the store, unloading the truck at the store, checking you out at the store, you know, throwing away the garbage after you leave. There's hundreds of people who have to work for you to sit here.

You know, every person here, even if you have financial independence, right? Still you eat. Still you do lots of, you travel here. Somebody built the car. Somebody made the road. And they gave their life for that. They got old, they died, and the road is there. And they gave that for you. They gave it for you to practice.

So, he says, you have to pay them back. Okay?

How? Study emptiness.

Cheap. Oh, it's just think about nothing, Geshehla. That's a good deal. They give me groceries, I think about nothing. I could just watch Netflix and do the same thing, you know?

So, it's an interesting concept that in this book that the devil debates with the angel, he says, if you are studying emptiness, if you are thinking about emptiness, if you're sitting in a class on emptiness, there's a big network of other people feeding you, putting clothes on you, driving the airplanes, you know.

Oh, don't worry, Geshehla, I paid them.

I know how much you pay a person for their life. How much you pay for an hour of life, you know? 

Can you buy back the hour, the pilot on the plane from Singapore, I don't know, it's like 48 hours. Are you going to give him back 48 hours?

You cannot. You know, he gave you his life. The pilot, he or she gave you their life.

And then when you get to Diamond Mountain, you better do something, because you owe them. 

That's a very interesting emptiness meditation.

Somebody said, everybody wants an emptiness meditation.

Yeah, I want an emptiness meditation. Okay, you got to hold your fingers right. The channels don't work unless you do. And then think about the pilot who drove the airplane.

Wait, I'm supposed to be meditating about emptiness. No, he's allowed you to think about emptiness. You have to pay him back with a good emptiness meditation, okay? That's the only thing valuable enough to pay back the pilot for his life.

And I always say Warren Buffett cannot… You know, Warren Buffett bought my company. And I think about him a lot. 81 billion dollars, I think. 181, something like that. And he cannot, he had to retire this year, poor guy. He's 90 something, 91? 94. And he had to retire. Why?

With 81 billion or 181 billion, he couldn't buy one more hour. He couldn't buy one more hour, you know. You cannot. There's no price. That pilot's life has no price. Warren Buffett cannot buy him another hour, okay, of his life. So, you have to meditate seriously.

When you're here, you have to use the time, okay?

Oh, Geshehla, does that mean I can't watch football?

Well, I watched some yesterday. No, I mean you got to have, you got to relax sometimes. You got to learn how to relax. You got to goof off sometimes. That's Buddhist practice. Certain TV shows are Buddhist practice. 

No, I mean you have to know how to relax. I can't count how many students I met who didn't know how to relax and they quit. They got all nervous and they quit. And don't be like that. You know, have fun, goof off, overeat sometimes, it's okay. And then come back to your study and work hard, okay? You got to have some fun time. You have to, okay?

Otherwise, you'll break. Right, Xiaoping? And later you'll get grumpy. Later you'll get grumpy, because you overwork all the time. Then you're like, I got to go, I got to go. I just want to ask you, did you enjoy your ... no, I don't have time. Okay.

So, he says when you are trying to do a retreat, when you're trying to meditate about emptiness, dedicate it to your sponsor. Dedicate it to the pilot. Dedicate it to the people who brought the groceries. Dedicate it to the Joes and the other people who worked so hard to build this place. Yay! 

Yeah, this place is like a secret atomic bomb, you know? No, it's like the most viable place in the United States, and nobody knows it's here, right? Okay.

Then he says when you do your emptiness meditation, remember the people who put you here.

Okay? Just always think about them, you know? You say, I don't know, today I don't feel like it. Do it for Joe, you know? Do it for whoever's working, and do it for them. Okay? Got it?

One more thing about that, next picture.

Many years ago, like five years ago, I made a mind map. Unfortunately, I learned how to use it. It was very, very simple. Even I could use it. And I was so proud of myself. And ... this is a mind map of our organization. Okay?

This is what we look like around the world. That's how many organizations we have, okay? If you count all of them. And this is their interconnection. They all interconnect. You see?

There's only one thing that is the same for all of them. Somebody has to take responsibility to pay for it. In the end, the bills come to me. Okay? Seriously. And I'm not complaining.

I signed up for that. And I'm proud of it. I'm happy to do it. It's my job. But ... it's a lot of money. You have no idea. And ... what I'm asking is ... cooperate with each other. When you fundraise, cooperate with each other, okay? If Emily figures out how to steal half of Stanley's funding, then guess where Stanley goes to get the other half? No, it always comes on me. It always comes back to me. And it's very hard. It's really, really hard. Imagine this many organizations.

And if one of them ... what do you call it? There's a word. Poaching. Yeah, like you just go and ... and you go, oh, this is Xiaoping's sponsor.

Oh, really? You know? And you just take him out for dinner. And then suddenly, they tell Xiaoping, oh, I gave half the money to somebody else. It always comes back to my head. It always comes back to me. And it's ... and it's hard. It's really, really hard. Okay?

What I'm saying is, if it's one family, and one person takes from another person, and dad has to come and take from another person and get back to that one, it's just a waste of time. And it's a waste of my life. And I don't have lifetime. I do not have lifetime. I know I don't have lifetime. I mean, I have 30 doctors telling me, you don't have lifetime.

So, I got to use it wisely. I have to use every hour wisely. I don't have time to go find out who stole this person's sponsor. Or like that. That's your job. Okay? All right? Understand? Okay? Okay? And I will do it happily. I will do it. I swear I will do it. But it's just a lot of trouble. It costs me a lot of late nights and ... I lose my lifetime. I lose the time to do the things I want to do. So, anyway, talk to each other. The easiest thing is to talk to each other. Oh, Xiaoping, I met this lady. She's your sponsor. Can I ... Can I take this? Is it okay? And then she says, yeah, that's fine. That's no problem. Then that's cool. You see what I mean? What do you call it? That's good manners. And then I don't have to get involved. Understand? All right? Then I can translate more books then.

Make more mind maps. Okay.

This also has to do with security. 

There's customs in every country. There's laws in every country. You know, I was in Uzbekistan. 

I was asked to talk in Uzbekistan by ... what's his name? Mirza Karim Nobyekov. Mirza Karim Nobyekov. Very nice guy. He said, come to my house. We'll make a barbecue and we'll eat all night and dance. He's Uzbek, he dances. And I went, and I was supposed to give a talk. And I got up in my robe and suddenly there's 50 policemen there. Around the audience. And they all got guns and stuff. And I'm like ... And he said, well, maybe you take the robe off, Geshehla. And I'm like, nobody told me. I didn't know. I didn't know this is the rule here. So, every country has their own rules.

And what happens is people want to teach, they go someplace, they break the rules, and guess who the police come to. It's always me. In the end, it's always me. And it happens about every three months, and it's frightening to have a policeman in a foreign country come to your door, bang on the door. It happened. It happened many times.

Me and Veronica went to the police station. Here's my wife. I'm like, here, come see this beautiful country. We spent the whole half a day being interrogated by the police. And it's very, very frightening. And it's very difficult.

The thing is, you don't know the rules. A lot of people don't know the rules. You don't know what's the rules in other countries. But they always come back to me. Dads come to me, and policemen come to me. And I don't like them. It's stressful. It's very difficult for me.

So, I ask you, respectfully, talk to each other. Just talk to each other.

Can I ask one of your people to help me pay for my Mexican project? And Jenny Wong said, yeah, sure. She's like the one who always says, yeah, sure, go ahead.

But you have to ask, okay? Number one.

Number two, find out the rules. Please, please, please. If you don't know the rules, then don't do it. Find out the rules first, okay? And as a Buddhist, you must respect the laws of your country, okay? As a Buddhist, respect the laws of your country. If you don't like them, move someplace else. You can. You've got two legs. You know, just go.

But in general, I warn you, you will find out your own country is the best place to be. And you won't be so happy in another country. I predict. Your country has laws. They come from the customs of your people. They come from the ancient times, and they fit your people. So, you know, when you go to another person's country, follow their laws, okay?

You don't have the right to tell other people's country, I don't have to follow your laws. Why? It's not the same as mine. Well, then you go back, okay?

That's correct, right? You don't go to someone else's house and say, I don't like spaghetti. You know, you should make pizza. You know, you don't do that. It's bad manners, right? Okay?

If you choose to go to another person's house, then my teacher ... When I was going to go to India, I went to my anthropology professor. He spent a long time there. I never went there. And I said, do you have any advice for me? And he said, you sit down, and I'll give you advice.

He was like famous. He was Geertz, Clifford Geertz's very famous anthropologist.

He said, I'll tell you the anthropology golden rule. I'm like, yeah!

He says, eat whatever they put in front of you. Whatever country you go to, whatever culture you go to, whatever they put in front of you, go, mmm, this is delicious! And then you can spit it out afterwards. Okay?

Like, to respect other people's country, and they cook for you, and they offer you something. You should try Mongolian dinners. Oh, man. 25 years. And I'm like, mmm, yeah, I love ... I love that stuff. And ... You got to respect other people's country. Okay? And that's what the greatest, one of the greatest anthropologist in history told me.

Then I said, okay, what else? He said, that's it. When you go to someone else's country, follow their customs, and don't piss them off.

And don't think you know better. Okay? Alright? Got it?

Then I don't have to get involved. Then I can relax, translate more books. 

Okay? Deal? Okay. Thank you. I appreciate it.

And I'm not angry, and I'm not upset. I just ... I don't have time. It's just mathematics. I don't have time. If I had time, I would definitely talk to the police for you. But I don't have time, you know? Or the other person's sponsor. I can get involved. I can make peace. But I don't have time.

You got to respect my time. Okay? Alright. Next picture.

We are moving on to a new ... How am I doing on time? Five minutes? Oh. Let's do Q&A. Is that okay? Alright. Let's do Q&A. I'm on canto 15. Okay? We have 25 cantos. Okay? We'll make it in 10 more years.

And by the way, my rule about question and answer, any question you want, I don't mind. Okay? It doesn't have to be about emptiness. You can ask me about your dog, although I'm better at cats. Okay? But I'm happy to answer any question you have.

[Inna: Hi Geshehla. I have a question.]

You always have a question.

[Inna: You said ... Actually my husband has the same question.]

He's always got more questions.

[Inna: So, you said that when chu chok happens, within two hours a person sees emptiness directly, and cannot die, more or less within this period of time.]

I would say cannot.

[Inna: What could be a karmic cause if the second event didn't happen? Like, after the first one, somebody has seen the dependent event, but the second part doesn't happen. Could it be that something is missing, like shamatha or something?]

Yeah, okay. Good question.

Just because things come from your seeds does not mean everything can happen. Okay? And it would seem to mean that.

If I say that what happens to you in your life is coming from your seeds, then it should be that almost anything is possible. You could find ... what's that green thing you eat? You could find an avocado that tastes good to Geshe Michael. But, I mean in theory, if everything is created by seeds, then everything should be possible.

But, there are patterns. There are patterns of reality.

You know, given the patterns of reality, for example, an orange tree will grow from an orange seed, and that's not because the seed has any power in it. It means that the karma which creates that orange seed normally follows a pattern of creating an orange fruit. Not necessarily, but normally. Okay?

But I would assert, and I don't have a lot of, you know… It's something that I say from my own experience. It's not something I read in a book. I don't believe it's possible to see the pot on the stove and not see emptiness directly within two or three hours. I don't think it's possible. I think it's not allowed by the patterns of seeds. Okay? I don't think it's possible.

I would say it's not possible. That's my own experience.

A lot of the experiences I had that day, I found them later in books, and I was so happy about the books. You know, I was like, yeah, they got it right. One was that I would have seven more lifetimes. To you it sounds weird, you know.

Look, I'm a seven-lifer. What's a seven-lifer? I will be a Buddha in seven lifetimes. And I know it, and I know where and everything.

So, you say, I don't know Geshehla, it doesn't sound so fun to die seven times. But I'm like, that's because you don't know how many billions of times you died already. Seven is nothing. Seven is like, you have to work overtime at work for 30 seconds or something. Like, everybody can do that. 

So, I saw seven. The number seven. And then I would go around, you know, I wonder why it has to be seven. And then one day I found it in the Abhidharmakosha. It's called Sipa Lendumbawa. Sipa means Samsara, like Sipa KORWA, long wheel of life.

BAWA Chakra. And then Lend means times, and DUM means seven. Sipa Lendumbawa is called a seven timer. It's a kind of Arya. It's one kind of Arya.

So, I haven't found that one yet, about not dying in between. I haven't found it yet, but I bet I'll find it. I don't know. Maybe I'll make it.

Okay, other question.

[Geshehla, we have a question from a Malaysia student.]

Okay, good. Am I going to pay for Ben's next vacation? Probably. You guys have any—go ahead.

We can't hear you, but come closer. Okay.

[student speaking in Malai]

[David: Okay, we cannot hear the online translator, so I'll just translate it in English. So, as we're learning the seed system, as the technology and also the health technology are developing, we're noticing the nutritious balance, especially, and my question is, after we learn the seed system, do we still have to worry about nutritious balance? And also, how can we eat more nutritious and more healthy? How can we eat more healthy? How can we eat healthier?]

Oh, eat healthier, yes. You're asking me. 

Okay, no. My wife said, are you going to eat cornflakes for the rest of your life? And I'm like, probably.

It should be at a certain point if your karma is good enough… 

Well, I'll tell you an experience. These are all experiences I had around the time I saw emptiness, and I've told it to you before, but I want you to hear it many times, and I don't care if if you say you heard it before, just take a nap. So anyway, I was meditating very well, I think I ... well, I did reach shamatha, and then I was in the library at Princeton, and it's a beautiful library. You know, it's ... I think it's 250 million books or something, it's crazy. It goes underground for seven, eight stories, and the reading room was built in the ... I don't know, a hundred years ago, and it's all nice wood, and beautiful windows, and I was sitting there working on my class work, and then I realized I had not breathed for about ten minutes. And I was like, huh. You know, I wasn't doing it on purpose, I was just focusing on something, and then I realized I didn't breathe for like ten minutes, and then I spent many years thinking about that. I spent years thinking about it, that if the luminous images coming out of seeds are sufficient, you don't need oxygen to live. It's not true. You can live without oxygen. You can live without breathing. You know, and I've experienced it directly myself, which is why I support eating only cornflakes.

No, I'm just kidding. Just kidding, my wife's going to kill me. You don't tell her, okay? Gibson, don't get me in trouble.

But in general, I would say inside of the fact of seeds, you are in a certain pattern. For example, there's only five different ways you can take rebirth, okay. There's only five or six. Every person who dies will become an animal or a human or a hungry ghost, like that. There's only, there's patterns to reality that are not broken. Okay, in theory you could become a piece of wood, or you could become a rock, and there are stories like that, but in general, there are certain patterns.

Once you're into a certain life type, human, then in general, the pattern for humans is you have to eat well, and you have to exercise, and you have to take care of yourself. You have to do yoga, and you have to take care of your body. So, I would say it's a wise thing.

We all know people who are too worried about their body. They want to have muscles. They want to look nice. They spend all day picking out, what do you call that stuff? Hair conditioner? And stuff like that. I mean, you went too far. You can go too far.

I only eat macadamia nuts. I don't eat peanuts. Like that, I think that you can go too far.

But, in general, I think eating wisely, not overeating, and generally, I think the three things are fat, sugar, and carbohydrates. Fat, sugar, and carbohydrates. We had a discussion the other day. I have a friend, bought me groceries. I said, pick me up some cereal. And they brought this stuff, it's called Frosted Flakes. And it has a real nice tiger on the front. Kids love it. And I said, no, no, no, I can't eat that. And they're like, Geshehla, you said to buy cereal. This is cereal. I said, I got my Corn Flakes box. And I said, okay, let's compare the numbers. Cheerios is 10 grams of sugar in a bowl. It's unsweetened. The one we got was 30 or 40 or 50, I don't remember. Yeah, something like that. It's three times more sugar. Same with the carbohydrates, like double, double the carbohydrates. That's what kills people.

Normally, in this human body, created by certain patterns of karma, with exceptions for people with extraordinary karma, who don't have to eat. But normal people with normal karma, who had the karma to come here, you have to eat healthy food. You will live longer. Okay?

And it's not from the food side, it's from your seed side. The seeds that have the pattern to create a human body normally need certain kind of healthy food to run better. And that I can say is true. If you eat well.

When I became a monk, in 1982 I think, 83, they said, you can option, there's an option. I said, what's the option? You can tell us the day you get your robes, that you're going to keep the monk's commitment not to eat after 12. For three weeks, or something like that. You can vote for that, but if it's too difficult, you don't have to do it. And I said, well it sounds interesting, I'd like to try.

So I kept it for 16 years or something. I didn't eat after 12. And, that was my corporate lifetime. That was the time I was building the company. And I think it helped me build the company. I think it, it was healthier that I didn't eat solid food.

You can have a smoothie, healthy smoothie in the morning, but you can't eat solid food until, I mean you eat solid food at noon and then you don't eat again. I think it was extremely healthy. And it gives your body a chance to rest for half the day.

I still, then when I started to do yoga in the morning, I had to eat in the afternoon, so then I didn't eat in the morning. And I got that habit. I still normally don't eat in the morning. Normally I don't eat until noon. And I think that's healthy. I think it gives your body a break. I have a smoothie at 9:00. And I start craving a smoothie at 8:58. So, I think that's okay.

But it does make a big difference.

Again, there are yogis who don't have to eat. And there's yogis who eat terribly and are fine. 

Like those guys on the subway in New York who live on candy bars. I hate them. They're all muscles and they look healthy and they're eating a candy bar. Right? In the subway you meet these guys. But it's just karma. It's mostly karma.

But our general karma is that if you eat poorly you will die earlier.

And when you, as you go through life, you realize how rare it is to stay alive. How difficult it is to stay alive. People will start dying around you. People will start dropping out.

Where's that person who used to come to class? Oh, Geshela, you didn't hear? They got in an accident, or they got cancer.

As you go through life, more and more of your friends will disappear. And then you realize your life is very valuable, very precious. You have to take care of it. Okay? Take good care of it. And it's fun. You can have more fun.

All right. Don't tell my wife I gave you this lecture.

Okay. Next one.

[Hector: Thank you, Geshehla. My question is about the Diamond Way that we're all developing to enter. What is your advice on how we should think and how we should engage with this new Diamond Way that you're doing, if you're halfway through or starting the old Diamond Way or finished it? Finished it, meaning the study part.]

Yeah, okay, good. That's a good question.

 So, I taught Diamond Way ... My teacher taught it to me early. I think the second year I was there, like 1977 or something, he started teaching us the Lam Rim to prepare for Diamond Way. And he said he was preparing us for Diamond Way. And then he started giving us empowerments after two more years. And then I had to do more empowerments because I had to ... I was one of the clergy at the church. I was one of the monks at the temple. And every morning we had to do the prayers. And a lot of them are Diamond Way prayers. So, I had to learn it. I mean, I had to learn it early. SDUG GI LAM DGRA LA MO'I DGOS LO, SDUG PA'I YAL YIN LA RTZA RGYUD KYI LAM PA'I YID BLO CHO GSUNG GANG NAS SU MED RDZOGS KYI KHO NA'I RGYUR BA'I RGYUR DA'ANG DANG DRO BA'I RNAMS KYI DA'ANG NYON PA'I ZIN ZHIG RTE DU RIGS KYI NAS ZIN PA'I JI ZHIG BYA CHUNG NYID PA LA CI'I BAR DU'I PHRA DANG LA MA DANG PA'I RNAMS NA Like that.

You can get so good at memorizing the sadness that you can recite the whole thing without thinking about it once. So anyway, I had to go through all that.

And then during my three-year retreat, I thought, I had taught seven years of ACI courses, and that was basically, I got my Geshe during that time, and I wanted Westerners to learn the Geshe course, and I wanted people who were not monks to learn the Geshe course, which was never done before. And so I created ACI to teach the Geshe course to normal people, and I had a feeling that normal family people, working people, that I knew, the ones I knew were so capable, the ones in New York for example, most of them, yeah. They're so sharp, and they had so much energy, I thought, wow, if they could practice the classics, the Geshe course, during their working life, you'd have an explosion, you know. It would be, it'd be the first time in history, I think, maybe during the Tang Dynasty there were some lay people like that, I don't know. But I thought it would be incredible, so I worked really hard to choose the most important parts of the Geshe course, and put it into, you know, put it into those courses.

And my teacher had, he taught for 25 years, he did not have any requirements. You just come to class, you sit there, he finished, you go home. There's no homework, there's no exams, there's no review. Then I thought if someday I teach, I would like to teach with homeworks, and exams, and I would like people to take it more seriously.

Only two of his students, or three, took it seriously, I would say, who came to all the classes, and really learned everything he had to teach. I'd say there was only three. Out of hundreds of people, only three people really worked hard and learned it well.

So, I decided if I do this, I'm gonna have more tough—and I remember, I can talk about Michael Wick, right? I said, no more coming to class late. If you miss more than two classes in a course, you are out. And if you come more than—I will lock the door at three minutes after the hour, and I will not open it, and I don't care who's out there. 

So, this is, we were down in Hell's Kitchen, and I locked the door. Michael Wick was outside, and he started banging on the door, and he was very angry. A dear friend of mine, and then he said, he yelled through the door, you're just a goddamn Dharma Hitler.

And I'm like, I'm sorry, I'm trying to get people to take it seriously, you know? So, and I have to say, it turned out well, and the students responded. They didn't drop out. They actually, every six months we had to move to a bigger place. And it was hard in Manhattan to find a bigger place, but it just grew and grew and grew, because people also appreciated that they had to follow some rules, and they were learning something, and so we finished the eighteen courses.

Then I did three-year retreat. One of the deals I think I made was, I have to do a three-year retreat, but if you come back after three years, I'll teach you Diamond Way. And so, during the three years, I had a lot of ideas about Diamond Way, how to teach Diamond Way.

Then I, I wrote the outline for the Diamond Way course. It was going to be a six-year course, 18  courses, and I wrote it during my retreat, And then when I came out, I went on a tour around the United States, I don't know if you remember that. But we didn't have any money, we had some old cars, kept breaking down, we stayed in terrible hotels, motels.

I remember one in Texas, I almost got killed. It was on the, it was right next to the highway, like two feet away from the highway, and a car came and hit the hotel. It was very frightening, but then I went around the United States and I said, I'm gonna teach Diamond Way, and here's the outline, here's the 18 courses, and I think that's how I met Ben Kramer, I think, in Indiana or something like that. But I met people like that. So then I did that, and I went purposely counterclockwise around the United States. So, I went to Florida first, New York, and then Washington State, and back to Arizona. So, I went Vajrayogini way around the country.

So anyway, I came back, then here we started the courses, and I think a hundred and something people, 120 something, 139 people finished, and mostly we were pretty strict. There were a few exceptions, but mostly they passed the 18 courses. I didn't finish all the courses because I was stressed out, there was a lot of work, they were very, very long courses, and it took me a lot of time to translate them, and I was exhausted. I remember one homework I did in the car on the way from Tucson to Bisbee, and Tombstone. And I was so exhausted, we got a ticket, it was midnight, we got a ticket in the middle of nowhere, and the cop stopped us, and I was still working. I was not driving, and I still, he said that guy okay? Yeah, he's okay. And then I got there, and I looked at the homework, it was 83 questions or so, and I'm like, nah, I'm gonna cut that down. Anyway, I was so tired that I went overboard on the questions.

And then I observed people, after I finished the course, it is the best Diamond Way course ever created in history, I can say that easily. It is the most complete course in Diamond Way ever created. And I studied briefly at the Tantric colleges, I've been there, I debated there, and so I know what they study, and I know how they study, and it's better, it's much better, it's more thorough, and it's more complete.

So anyway, I finished that 18 courses, it took six years, that's seven years, and then I, I don't know, I challenged the students, I said now I'll make you a deal, I will not teach Diamond Way again, and then you guys teach it. I kind of made a decision that I would force them to teach it. So I said I'm not going to teach it again, and you guys have to teach it. And then to be honest, as I remember it, not many people taught, maybe 5% something started teaching, and I was really kind of surprised. But anyway, then many years later I guess, 7 plus 3, 10, 15 years later, oh no, how many years ago? The Kyoto ambush, four years ago, so I don't know, after many years someone asked me very sincerely, a small group of people asked me very sincerely, and I just agreed right away, and I did it. Then I was faced with, you see when I taught Diamond Way here, the students were, by the way I can go over time, it's alright? Okay, I'll take it out of your next class.

So when I was here, it was pretty much a full-time thing, and people either lived here or they commuted here. But then I was faced with, how do you teach Diamond Way to normal people? How do you teach Diamond Way to people who have families, people who have jobs, and the contradiction is that people who have good jobs, and people who build their own business, which is, these people are mostly business owners, and people who have healthy families are better students, they learn faster, they're responsible, you know, if you bring up a lot of kids, right? Vivian, a kid, then you have to be responsible. And so what I discovered was that these normal working people who had, many who built their own companies, they're really good at learning Diamond Way, and I'm like, hmm, you know. So I have over the last, how many years? No, like since we finished here, it's about 20 years. It's about 20 years. I have 20 years more experience in my life, I've been teaching for 20 years more, I've been teaching groups of normal people, who are not monks in the monastery. And by the way, in my opinion, in my tradition, in my lineage, the Diamond Way teachings in the Diamond Way monasteries are not very helpful. And the requirements are very strange nowadays. If you memorize Guhyasamaja sadhana, you graduate, you're done. And I'm like, well, what if you're just a bad person, you know? I mean, you know, it's weird, it's a little unusual, it's a little strange.

There is a three-year retreat custom, and there's a small house in the middle of the monastery, and you go and you do three years there. But you're surrounded by a normal monastery. Monastery is the last place in the world you want to go if you want to meditate, because it's noisy, and it's crazy, and it's very political. You will never understand it.

So, you know, I just thought we could do better than that, and I thought that there should be a special Diamond Way for normal people in the world who have their own work, they have their own families. Many of the original Diamond Way teachings were designed for business people. Gacala Chakra, for example, was first taught to kings, and it was designed for people who didn't have time to live in a monastery, and it was very successful. They taught it in a certain style that was very fun, and very mellow, and very beautiful, and very happy, and very much you could have a normal life and be very successful at Diamond Way at the same time. And that's kind of my dream, you know, that's kind of my dream for Diamond Way. So, that's the kind of thing I would like to teach, and that's what I'm trying to teach. Now, I didn't answer the question.

There's people halfway through the old course. The old course, so what should they do? I don't know. I would say that if you're halfway through it, it must mean that you're supposed to ... it's bad luck not to finish something that you start. I think it's really bad luck, and it's bad for your character. It's bad for your life to start something serious, make a commitment, and then break it halfway through. It's just a bad habit. So, I would say ... I mean, I haven't given it a lot of thought, but when I think about it, I think normally you should finish what you start, and you should do the new one also. That would be my advice, and you're going to be a little stressed out. But you will have the background of the original courses, which is ... I don't know, it's ten or fifteen thousand pages of translation, and it's good stuff, and I will use most of it, but in a different way. And it will be more to fit your normal life. And so, I guess I would say if you're halfway through it, finish ... it's a bad habit not to finish what you start. You should finish, and then, you know. And I do think the new approach will be very helpful, and maybe together it'd be very interesting, you know, could be ... I think it would be very useful. So, that's a long answer to a short question, but that's my hope, you know, and I'm very excited about the new Diamond Way.

I call it Clear Diamond, and just the empowerment, I've been working on it really hard, and it's amazing, it's really, really beautiful, okay? And I think my idea is that when I ... so, I'll do one empowerment this month for a small group that asked me in the first place, and then we'll do another empowerment for the larger group in October. And my idea is if you take the empowerment, this is my own thought, okay? And it's not interesting to you, and it might happen, okay, or you ... and I'm not gonna let you take the vows until you take the empowerment, and then you will learn the vows after the empowerment.

But my deal that I'd like to offer is if you take the empowerment, and it doesn't fit you, and you feel like this is not gonna work for me, then, you know, I don't see any reason to force you to keep going. If you say Geshehla, you know, it was really interesting culturally, but it's not ... it doesn't ... it's not something I want to do, then I ... God bless you, you know. Then go do some other course. I have countless courses, or do something else, I don't mind at all, I'm happy, okay? If it doesn't fit you ... I told you about my wife when she went to the cowboy store, and she tried on how many? Forty-something pairs of jeans, and she didn't buy any of them. And don't tell her, but I sat there the whole time, except there was no chairs in the store. Anyway, if it doesn't fit you, don't go crazy, just do something else. There's so many choices, and I can see a different Diamond Way for each organization. I can see a diamond way for YSI, different Diamond Way. I can see a different Diamond Way for the translators, I can see a different Diamond Way for the business people, and you know, Five Houses, different. And I can see how we can fit it to different kinds of people, okay? And I'm gonna ... that's what I would like to do, okay? And then if you ... if it's not interesting, just, you know, be happy, and don't get all stressed out, alright? And it'll be designed to put into your normal life, and the best Diamond Way practitioners in history didn't look like Diamond Way practitioners. They just looked like normal people. They just looked like normal business people, or normal family people, and my ... okay, last thing.

Sometimes my teacher called me Mr. Last Thing. Ultima Cosa. You know, I forgot. No, I just mean, if you're really successful at Diamond Way, maybe nobody would know you were doing it at all, and it would be totally internal, and everything around you would be amazing. Nobody would know that you had studied Diamond Way. That's kind of what I dream ... Oh, I remember.

Last thing. My teacher told me, we have to go to South India to the monastery, but we're gonna stop in North India first. And I'm like, why? And he said, we're gonna go to Darjeeling. Darjeeling is a tea, right? But the real name is Dorjeeling, which means diamond world. The word Darjeeling is the British corruption of Dorjeeling, and so there's a small town called Darjeeling in North India. And my lama's sister lived there. And I met her when she was about 60 or something. And he said, we're gonna pick her up, we're gonna bring her with us for fun, you know. She's gonna take a break, and we brought her on the plane. She had never been on a plane before, and she was screaming the whole way. She was holding onto the seat, and the plane was going like this, and she was like … I was like, oh man, I gotta do this for three weeks. We got her there, and she's old, and then, you know, he sent me to her room to give her something or something. I walk in, she's in the middle of Vajrayogini sadhana, you know, with everything, and she's like ... she's doing all this stuff. And I'm like, whoa, you know. I'm like, I'm sorry, I thought you were an old lady, and she's like, whoa. And I'm like, whoa, and then I run to my teacher, I said, you didn't tell me who's your sister. This is Geshe Lothar's mom, you know, okay? He's his nephew, and I'm like, you didn't tell me who's your sister. And he says, oh, I forgot, you know. And she's the head of a secret Vajrayogini club in Darjeeling, and it's all old ladies, and they know everything perfectly. They know the teachings perfectly, they study them like crazy, they get together for tea, and they're all gossiping about Vajrayogini all the time. And I said, that's so cool, is there such a thing in tantra, is there such a thing in the Diamond Way? He said, that is the Diamond Way, you know, the old ladies get together, and they have tea, and they plan their Vajrayogini sadhana, and they talk about all the cool stuff they're doing, and the secret stuff they're doing, and how they're helping people secretly, and nobody knows. And he said, he's like that (making gesture like thumbs up), and I never forgot it. It's very beautiful. If you look at her, she's an old lady screaming on a plane. But she's like, heavy, heavy Vajrayogini. Okay, cool? That's my dream. Okay, thank you. Go, see the secret bathroom.

[1:58]

We're going to do A Song of my Spiritual Life.

The DCI people know this picture. I really like this picture.

For zero dollars. What's the life tool called in DCI?

Yeah, your mouth is my mouth. Yeah, your mouth is my mouth.

And think, okay, just think like this, okay? I like to eat donuts and I never get them because my wife won't let me eat them. No, I don't think we ever had one in our house. Did you ever see one in my house? No. So paradise is not quite perfect.

But the thing is, when you eat something you enjoy, you can go to a Peach Tree Café and have a cinnamon roll, and they're fun to eat, they taste good. And if you understand seeds and if you like cinnamon rolls, then you must give them to other people, okay? No choice. And if you understand where things are coming from and you want things, you like things, you must give them to other people.

It includes money, it includes kindness, it includes everything, okay? Anything you want in your life, first you must give it to someone else because otherwise you don't plant the seed. And that donut is coming from seeds. That donut is pictures coming out of ... Wait, yeah.

We can do a mantra retreat. 

That has some implications. If it's true that the donut, the cinnamon roll that I got at Peach Tree Café, if it's true it's coming from giving them to other people, if it's true, then there's several other things have to be true, okay? And one of them is that whatever you like, you don't have choice. You must give it to other people. You don't have a choice. If you have one donut only, and if you like them, what should you do? You must give it away. And human beings don't understand that. Human beings, very, very, very few human beings understand that.

If you like donuts, and if you like cinnamon roll, and there's only one left at the Peach Tree Café, and you came in first, and you can buy it and you can eat it, if you like it, you must give it to the other person, okay? It's logical. It's the only way to get what you want, okay? Understand?

And it's very hard to do. It's very, very—in the moment, you know, you're like, nah, there's one more left, you know? It always happens to me. I have this karma. I go over there, they got one left, I'm looking at it, and just before I say something, some lady walks in and says, I want a cinnamon roll. And I'm like, I was here first, you know? And she's like, aww.

Then I say, okay, you take it, you know?

You have to understand one thing, it's self-interest. It's in your interest to give what you like to other people. It's how you get it. That's how you get it, okay? Understand?

It's very difficult for people. I don't know why.

By the way, they say there are planets where everybody understood this a long time ago. There are many countless worlds in the universe. You can visit them someday. And there are places that already understood that, and people just buy things and give them to other people. That's what they do, because they like them. Okay? So it's very— we're called— in English we say we are the stupid kids in the back of the class. We are the kids who are— Joe never did this, but— we're like doing bad things in the back of the class. And the science teacher— I remember specifically the science teacher's teaching, and we're doing very bad things in the back. We're the— our planet is the back of the class, okay? Everybody's in the back of the class. We are the— we are the stupid people in the universe who didn't understand it. That's one thing, okay?

The deeper thing, and the more interesting thing, I think— the more exciting thing is that this means that your mouth is my mouth. And that's— people always say, Geshehla, I want to do secret tantric practice. Okay, you got one here. Your mouth is my mouth. My mouth is your mouth, okay?

Not visually, I didn't say that, okay? Your mouth is over there.

My mouth is over here. I—duh, I understand. The mouths are on different heads, and I hope you don't have my dentist. I had a dentist recently, tore a tooth out, took a tooth out. He was halfway finished, and he said, Mike, and I'm like, uh-uh? He says, this is killing my back. I got to take a break. And he said, I'll see you later.

Okay, I hope you don't have my dentist. Then I got outside, someone drove me because I'm on drugs, I mean, after the dental. It was Stanley and Xiaoping, and they're like, can we have the tooth? And I'm like, uh, okay.

So anyway, my mouth doesn't look like your mouth, but functionally, your mouth is my mouth, okay? If I want a donut to go into here, I got to make sure it goes into there. Visually, spatially, your mouth is not my mouth. Your mouth is in a different latitude and longitude. But in reality, your mouth is exactly my mouth, because I can only get a donut if I put one in your mouth, okay? Therefore, your mouth is my mouth.

And, you know, all these new age people, you can tell them because they meditate like this (holding up his hands in the air). You can't do that for an hour. You got to put it down here (putting his hands on his thighs). They all say, everything's one, you know? You are me, you know? And you're like, can I borrow five dollars? And I'm like, no. But we really are. We are the same person. We are the same person. And logically, the goal of this lineage is that your logic overcomes your habits. Your understanding, your study overcomes your, the habits you were born with, okay? By hard work, study and meditation, retreat at Diamond Mountain, the best deal in the world, you find out that other people's mouth is your mouth, and then you act on it.

And what I wanted to say about this picture, and I'm old, I'm 73. I've been doing this for 50 years, and I've got to say one thing. If you practice that, or you try to practice that, your life is so unbelievably happy, okay? And you're just, all the time, it's a party from morning to night. Your whole life is like a party. And, in fact, it's better than most parties I went to. It's extremely enjoyable, okay? To practice this, to put stuff in other people's hands, is extremely fun. and I don't know why we don't do it. We hesitate, right? And, by the way, you take care of your own needs first, so you don't create problem for other people. It's not nice to give away all your money and then go borrow money from Anatole or something. That's not nice. Your responsibility is to get enough money to feed your family, feed yourself, have a nice place, not fancy, the car should run, and that's enough. And then, take care of other people, okay? I don't mean you have to not take care of yourself. That's a bad idea, okay? Then you'll just bother other people, all right? Take care of yourself quietly, effectively, and nicely.

I have money, I use it. I live in the smallest legal house in my town. The lot is one-sixth of an acre, okay? It's the smallest legal lot in the capital of the universe, Rimrock. But I'm happy and everything's okay, okay? So, take care of what you need, and then put donuts in other people's mouth, okay? And you will always have what you want. And I'm telling you as an old man, you know, you can have a wonderful happy life. And giving to other people is so much fun. There's nothing so much fun as that. There's nothing like that, okay?

It's just, forget the philosophy, okay? If you want to have fun, give stuff to other people— after you take care of yourself, after you take care, feed yourself, make sure you have a house to stay, and then become a professional giver, okay? Alright. It's fun, it's more fun. And I like fun. I'm a Buddhist, but I like fun, okay? I enjoy having fun. My whole day I enjoy it, I do what I enjoy. And it's fun, okay? Alright. Next picture.

I told you this story, but it comes up in the text. And if you didn't hear this story, you're lucky. If you did hear this story, you can take a short nap. Okay, so, in my company, we started it, two of us actually, in the very beginning there were two of us, and we rented half a table from another guy. And we stayed in his office, and we rented half the table. And that's all the money we had. It was near the Empire State Building. And, he would not give us the key to the toilet. We had to go across the street to McDonald's. And he was so cheap, I won't tell you his name. But that's how we started, we were so small. And we had three diamonds. Later we had, later we did 300,000 diamonds a day, every day. But at that time we had three diamonds. So, we had half a desk, and three diamonds.

And we'd just move them around on the desk, all day, and try, we'd call department stores, and, oh, it was funny. And then, later we got crazy successful, just crazy. And there were trucks full of diamonds. We built a special garage under the building. And the armored cars could come under the building, we'd lock the door, and then they'd take the diamonds out. And they're big bags of diamonds, you know, and all over the table. Sometimes you drop them, they stick on your shoes. And you can find some in the elevator, it's very exciting. When you go home, everybody's like (scanning the floor with his eyes), you know, so many diamonds and stuff. Very, very successful. Biggest in the world. We became the biggest in the world.

So, we weren't used to that kind of money. So, I gave almost all my money away. And then my partner, he went crazy. He bought like many houses. And there's a place called Tavern on the Green, you know this place? It's a restaurant in the middle of Central Park. There's only one business allowed to sell food in the park in a restaurant. And it's a very, very expensive place. So, he went there and he said, I want a table. And they said, okay, three weeks from now. And then he said, no, no, no. I want a table every night. I want to reserve a table for every night. And they said, well, do you know what it's going to cost? And he said, I don't care. It doesn't matter. I can pay anything. And then they said, are you going to come? He said, if I feel like it, I will come. If I don't feel like it, I won't come. Then they said, what do you want us to do with the table if you don't come? He said, I expect it to be available.

So, there's always one empty table at Tavern on the Green. For all those years, there's one empty, nice empty table. He's just sitting there in case he wants to go and eat a hamburger or something. 

So, we're sitting there and then I noticed something. Every time I go out to dinner with him, he's really cheap. He will not share his money.

He's always like, I say, you want to go have dinner? He says, who's paying? Then I'm like, you could buy the restaurant in two hours. He said, yeah, but I want to know who's paying. And I'm like, look, okay, I'll pay. Let's go, I'll pay, don't worry. And he said, okay, let's go. And then when I pay, he orders this wine, this $500 wine. I'm like, oh man. So anyway, many times I tried to get him to share his money. He would not do it. Many, many times I tried. He wouldn't share, never give a good tip. But what do you call it in Poruski? Tip.

Chivir? Okay, tip, chai, za chai. Okay, yeah, na chai. So I give na chai.

I always get, in Russian it means a little bit of tea money. Right?

And so anyway, I always, I like to give, we just always give $100, right? No matter what we buy, we give $100 tip. We're the most popular people at Peachtree. When we come in, they're like (looking all excited).

So then I'm trying to change his habit. I'm trying to get him to break out of his habit, you know? And then I had an idea and we finished a good dinner and I took out $100. He said, you're not gonna do that $100 thing. I said, yeah, I'm gonna do the $100 thing. He says, I don't know, you're crazy, man. Then he, I said, but Ofer, his name is Ofer. I said, one problem. He says, what? I said, I gotta go pee-pee. Then he's like, okay. And I said, here, you take the $100. And when the guy comes, you give it to him. The tip, you know? Okay, you go, you go.

So I run to the bathroom. You can see in the picture, okay? And it was zipped up, don't worry. And I was spying on him from the bathroom. And I see the waiter come to give the tip, you know? And I see him and my partner, he goes (making a generous gesture giving the tip). You know, and the waiter's like (looking all surprised). I can't hear anything.

I just can see, you know? And the waiter's like (brightening up), anything. And then my friend is like (proud).

Then I came out, you know, I sat down. I said, did you give him the money? He said, yeah. I said, how did it feel? He said, man, that feels good. And then slowly he got very generous, you know. 

You want to hear one more story? Okay. This is totally not on the subject. I think I told you recently, but anyway. Two things about Geshe course. When you finish Prajnaparamita, 12 years, then you have to leave the monastery. And you have to do a retreat. And maybe three months or something. And because you're about to study middle way. You're about to study emptiness, Higher Middle Way. So every person who gets that far in the Geshe course, they have to leave the monastery. They have to go stay in a cave or something. And you have to build up good karma so that you can understand the Middle Way course. And it's tradition, you have to leave and you have to do that.

And then there's little milestones like that. When you reach Abhidharma, your class has to give a gift to the monastery. We gave a library. We built a library for the monastery. And then when you do your Geshe, you have to make some gift to the monastery. So people give a painting or people throw a lunch for all the monks.

I decided, I spent many years in the debate ground. There's no roof. If it rains, you're out there in the rain. If it's 100 degrees, you're out there in the sun. If you're bald, your head's red all the time. Because sometimes you do four or five, six hours out there. And the debate master will come and make sure you're there and then he goes home and has some tea. And sometimes he takes a nap and he forgets to come back. And you cannot leave the debate ground until he comes back.

I suffered there. And a lot of my classmates had tuberculosis. And they're spitting in your face and coughing in your face. And then it rains. Then the next day, half of them are in bed, sick. And I thought, man, I would like to give a nice debate ground to the monastery with a roof, you know, so they're not standing out in the sun.

But I didn't have enough money, and so every six months, I would give my salary to the monastery. And the company would take it and keep it. They didn't pay me. And then I would take enough to buy shoes and stuff like that. And I never bought a car. I went four hours on the bus every day for 19 years. Because I didn't want to buy a car.

So, then every six months, I will give an invoice to the company, like $100,000, and then they will pay the charity. They will pay our charity.

So I said, I met the other guy and I said, would you like to donate a little bit extra? And he's like, how much do I owe you? And I said, you owe me $100,000. He's like, I'll give you $500,000. I'm like, oh, thanks. How much is your table at Central Park every night? He's like, oh, that's about $2,000. I'm like, okay.

And then, so when I did my Geshe, I had him and his wife over there. And I took them out to dinner. And I said, well, now this is a special night. And they're like, why? And I said, you know, you have to, I need to collect my money for the last six months and I'm going to give it to the monastery for my Geshe degree gift to the monastery. Then he's like, what are you going to do? And I said, I'm going to buy, I'm going to build a new kind of debate ground. Nobody ever had a debate ground like that. Like, it's going to have a roof, you know? And he's like, okay. And then I said, do you want to, do you guys want to donate something? And he's like, how much? And I said, 50-50? And he's like, 100,000? I'm like, you know. And then he's doing this thing with his wife. There's a diamond dealers and we do this thing (making signs with his hands). We go 100, 200, no, 300, no, no, no, no, 500, no, no, no, 200, you know, and they're doing this thing under the table.

And I'm like, tell me when you're finished, you know? Because you don't have to talk. You just do sign language. And then he said, we decided to do it. We'll give you, we'll match the debate ground. First debate ground without a cover. And I was like, wow. Why are you doing that? I said, you're from Israel. You're Jewish. He said, yeah, I was very religious.

I heard him tell another person he's so religious, why he's religious, if someone drives their car on Saturday, he will throw rocks at them. And this is the most religious thing, because you're not supposed to drive a car on Saturday if you're strict Jewish. He said, that's the most religious I got, was to throw rocks. I said, but all Israel people, you're all Jewish, right? He said, yeah, mostly. You know, we have some Ethiopians, Christians, but generally, they work in McDonald's. But generally, we're a Jewish country.

Then I said, you understand, it's a Buddhist monastery. The debate ground is for Buddhist people. And he said, yeah, he said, but you know, you got to cover your bases. I said, what? He said, look, you know, he leaned over the table and he said, we don't really know which religion is correct, do we? And there's a chance that you're correct and my religion might be wrong. So I'm just making, it's an insurance policy. And I'm like, okay.

Anyway, this was the education of my partner. He's actually a very, very fine person, very beautiful person. All right, next one.

In the text… So we have a problem, me and Rosa and Anatole. When the 10 translators came to, when they signed out, 12, basically I told them the same story. We will split all the money. And you have the right to publish your own book, equal right, anywhere you want. You cannot change a word, but you can publish it anywhere you want. And then they all agree.

And then I said, you get, we split the money and they're like, okay, we can do that. And then I said, I just warn you, that maximum sales for Tibetan philosophy book is about 30 copies. If you sell 50, you have a heart attack. So they're like, okay, we understand. But what it means is, when you sell a book, you cannot put on the cover… You have to put a sexy name on the cover, basically. You have to put an interesting name on the cover.

So me and Rosa Anatole, we have a lot of fun choosing the names. And we have, we do have fun. And she writes back and says, that's a stupid name. That's not, that's going to be worse than 10 sales. And then I write back and say, that's a stupid picture. And she says, yeah, let's have Gina do it. And she always does it and we should thank her.

So the subtitle of the book is A Struggle Against Our Tendency to Think That Things Are Coming at Us. Natural human being tendency, you think things are coming this way. And in fact, a lot of our philosophy books are arguing about that point for year after year. Things are not coming that way (towards us), things are coming this way (going out from us). And in this book, he makes a big, big deal about it. It takes courage to understand it. It takes courage to change your worldview. When you're born in this format, your mind is messed up. When you're born in this kind of body, your mind is twisted. And everyone, if you're not a Buddha or something, when you're born you have this problem. You believe that things are coming this way. You feel like that.

And there's a big debate about it in the Mind Only School, which they have a special belief that the other person is a picture in your own mind. You see, the person that you're giving the tip, that you're giving that money to yourself. In the Mind Only School, they are inside of your mind. You are giving it to someone who's inside of your mind. They are coming out of a seed in your mind, and they live in your mind.

So, it's very difficult to ...

Then there's a big debate in the Mind Only School. Why does it feel like people are out there? Where did that come from? Guess. Seeds.

Luminous seeds from ... How are you treated other people. Okay? It's very funny. It's very strange. Your habit to think that there's distance between your mouth and my mouth, how much? It's ten meters or something. That ten meters is coming out of a seed of a bad habit for countless lifetimes. It's very interesting in the Mind Only School that they ask the question, where does the feeling of distance come from? Who made it? Of course, the answer is it comes from your own seeds. For many lifetimes of believing it, you are born with it. You are born with it. In this life, you are born with it.

The first Panchen Lama says, it takes courage to try to fight it. It takes courage to understand, I am Tim. Although my hair is combed usually, by nature. You see? It takes courage to think it out. And then it takes more courage to live by it. It takes much more courage to share what you have once you understand that other people are you. It takes a lot of ... Your understanding has to be stronger than your mind that you were born with. What you learn in this class has to be stronger than what you were born with. And that's very rare. Extremely rare for a person to change their viewpoints that much in their life. It takes courage. He's saying courage.

That's why I like the guy with the sword. He's killing a dragon. The dragon represents your habit of seeing the distance. There's a little dragon down in the bottom corner. You can't see it very good. 

I'll tell you a story? This is just for fun. 

This is slaying a dragon. This angel is slaying a dragon. I was in Bangkok. I built a company there. On Suriwong Road. It was a gemstone buying company. Then my friend came from a diamond company in Mumbai, Girusha. He said, I want to buy a Thai statue. Thai style Buddha statue. Then I said, okay. He said, can you come with me so I know I'm getting a good one? I said, yeah, I'll come with you. We went to several shops. He was negotiating. He was fighting for $3 or something. He's got millions of dollars. That's the Juhu Beach guy. Where's the lady from Mumbai? He's the Juhu Beach guy. He has a penthouse on Juhu. He's fighting for $3 or something. I'm like, just pay the guy.  

Then I saw this statue. Metal statue? Old. Of this angel killing the dragon. I was like, man, that is beautiful. Then I told him, I think I'd like to buy it. He said, you shut up. He said, you don't know how to negotiate anything. Let me do it for you. Then the guy said, $90. He said, are you crazy? This piece is not worth $50. The guy says, okay, $85. They went on for like two hours. I'm like, just give him the money. It's okay. I got it for like $60. I took it home. It's about this big. I kept it on my desk at work.

One day someone came from the… What's that museum near you, John? Museum of Natural History? Metropolitan. A guy came from the Metropolitan Museum. He walked in. He helped us do a ... I was working for Christie's Auction House. We did a thing together. He walked in and he's like, oh, this is a bidubidubu from Paris. I said, no, no, it's a cheap thing from Bangkok. He said, no, no, this is the real thing. This is the real one. I'm like, are you sure? He said, you look on the bottom, you can see the signature. This is the real one. This one like $100,000 something.

I'm like ... And it was. So I gave it away. I had a lady working for me. She had a baby. She said I could be the godfather. So I gave her the statue for the baby. I don't know where it is now. Do you know her? She's Pelma's best friend. She brought Pelma to the company. Celestines, okay? If you ever find her. Eight feet tall. Okay, Barbadian.

Okay, anyway, why I say that? It takes courage to overcome the habit of millions of lifetimes. It takes a lot of courage to believe the other person's mouth is your mouth. It takes a lot of courage. And it takes a lot of study. And you can't do it just sitting in the class. You have to practice, okay? 

The clue is it is so fun to feed other people what you want. It is so fun, you will get addicted to it. Okay? It feels wrong at the beginning. It feels uncomfortable to give your money to other people. And then suddenly it becomes very, very pleasant. And your whole life is ... My life is fun. It's just fun. All the time I'm having fun. Except for when my wife makes me eat broccoli. Okay? Which does happen from time to time.

Do you know dogs don't eat broccoli when you throw it under the table? Okay.

How are we doing on time? Tim, what time? Ten minutes. Okay, I've got one more for you. 

Next picture.

This doesn't look very exciting. So, we live in Rimrock. This is what Rimrock looks like. It's a juniper forest. Those trees are like ... A big juniper is like a hundred years old or something. They're very slow. They have no water. But they do grow slowly.

And then we have a bad problem with fire. If someone throws a cigarette out the window of a car, it can burn up five, ten thousand acres. It can burn. Large parts of the state get burned every year. Some people ... Some guy ... Veronica's stepson lost his house in Flagstaff because some guy pooped and he had toilet paper in the forest and he tried to burn it because he didn't want to leave it on the ground. And then it destroyed hundreds of houses. So, it's very, very dangerous there. It's very easy. It's so dry that everything can burn easily.

And we live in a poor town. We don't have fire hydrants. So, I decided ... Me and my wife said, this town needs fire hydrants. So, we put one in. We paid for it. And everyone said, what are you doing? What are you doing? And we said, do you realize we live in ... We live at the top of a cliff and the fire will come and take our house first, like Los Angeles.

And we said, we're trying to help everybody. We're building this fire hydrant. They're like, how much did it cost? $30,000. And they're like, where you get the money. We work. They said, well, why don't you just buy a better car? Why are you building fire hydrants? And we're like, because we need them. Our town needs them.  

And that was our neighbor, Gary. He's like, you guys are crazy. They know him. He's an ex-marine, military. So, he's like, you guys are crazy. And anyway, we didn't tell anybody in the town. We told Gary because he's our friend, but we didn't tell anybody else. We just quietly paid for it. Now people are so grateful.

If you have this near your house, they cut your insurance. You have to tell your insurance agent we have a fire hydrant near the house, and that will cut your insurance. So, everybody on our side of town got more money for them because we did it. And everybody thinks the city put it there, but the city is more broke than we are. Everybody thinks the town put it there. And we didn't tell anybody, except you guys, okay? But I'm so proud of it. I go down and look at it sometimes. That little red head, that's so cute. He's like, you know… 

And people are so grateful, and then they don't know who did it, and I just want to say that that kind of giving is the sweetest.

That's the most fun, to do that kind of thing for other people anonymously. You just do it because it will help many people, and you don't tell anybody. It's very, very sweet, okay? You want to have fun? I mean the purpose of life is to be happy. The purpose to be alive is to be happy. This secret helping other people, is the most fun thing you can do, okay? I encourage you to try. I encourage you to try it.

If you want to be a happy person, just keep giving stuff quietly. Don't tell anybody you did it, and you can watch the people enjoy it, and it's just really, really enjoyable. Okay?

The purpose of life is to be happy. One of the best ways to be happy is to help other people without telling them. Just put it there, and let people admire the red hat that he has. This he talks about it.

I believe that ... We study what's called the Bodhisattva's way of life, how to live like a Bodhisattva. I would say that if you do it well, you are having fun. If you want to know if you're living the Bodhisattva's way of life, then ask yourself, am I having fun? Just ask yourself if you're having fun.

If you're not having fun, I suspect you're not living the Bodhisattva's way of life. Because it's fun. That's the purpose of life, you know, is to have fun.

I can't see any other reason to be alive if you're not having fun. I just think it's boring. You know, boring is the worst thing, right? The worst thing about Samsara is boring.

So, do stuff for other people. Because they are actually you. You will have much more fun. If you're having fun, you're practicing well.

Alright, thank you guys. Thank you.

[14:27] When we have a translator class, we are broadcasting into many restricted countries also. We've been doing that for 10 years. I ask all the participants to wear a suit. I think it helps on the other side to keep everybody safe. That's why we wear a suit in the middle of the desert. So far, it's helped. It's helped a lot.

[15:17] Okay, you ready? Alright, hi. Okay, here we go. Welcome to our morning meditation and then we'll be going into a translator class with Gibson Chang working on his new book. He's been ripping through those books. He's almost done with the third book. We had a class this morning already. These are advanced translation class for Diamond Way. We started it a couple months ago. They're learning some new things and I thought you might like to see what they worked on this morning.

Here's one of the manuscripts they're working on. They're learning how to read the handwritten manuscripts. This one comes from... This is a book that I found maybe 15 years ago. I found pieces of it in St. Petersburg. I found pieces of it in India. I found pieces of it in Mongolia. We put it back together. John Brady's project, ALL, found a whole manuscript not too long ago in Mongolia. I just wanted to thank them again. 

Around 700 years ago the Mongolians took over the world, including Moscow and also Vienna. They killed 400,000 Austrians outside of Vienna in a single week. Then the Khan died. Genghis Khan died. They got the message two years later and they turned around and went home. They took a lot of books back with them from many countries. So we're very lucky to have those books. Here's another version of it. This is a recent typing of the same book.

ACIP project, John's project, invented the first computer typewriter many years ago. That's one. Then I had another one for you. Where is that? Tim, help. It's not quite... Okay, let's see. Yeah. Well, anyway, they're also learning the handwritten script, which is very exotic and difficult to read. There's another text. Oops, that's something else (Loan Agreement shortly to be seen on screen). We were, me and my wife, there's one other competitor coffee shop in Rimrock and we secretly helped them. That was a loan we made this week. Pretty big loan to our competitor coffee shop in Rimrock. We're trying to practice this thing called DCI. Anyway.

She was happy that we have this system. We're going to go to this one. Yeah.

Dang, what happened? I lost it. Okay. We've been going through the Devil, Debate, and Angel. There are 31 meditations pretty early in the book. They are very subtle meditations and they are wrong. There's 31 mistaken meditations. I've been going through them one by one every week. Each week I do a different one. We are on number 16. We've gone through 15 wrong meditations. It's very helpful to learn a wrong meditation because then you can find out what's the correct meditation by illumination.

Sp if you go through those 31 meditations, you will find one or two that you have been doing and you didn't know they were wrong. Why they are wrong, what's wrong with them, he explains it very beautifully. The first Panchen Lama.

We're going to go through one of those meditations today. That's number 16. I call it a flaccid lack of an opinion. It means a wimpy lack of an opinion. A meditation where you attempt to not take a position. There are emptiness meditators in history, in different countries, who thought that it would be helpful to try to do…

When you do an emptiness meditation, you should try to take no position at all about things.

Are they real? I don't take a position.

Are they not real? I don't take a position.

Are they real and not real? I don't have a position.

Then you say, what kind of stupid position is that? Then they quote Chandrakirti, who's one of the great emptiness teachers of all time. He wrote a book called Prasannapada, which means Clarification of the Words of Nagarjuna. Here's his quotation.

,'DIR MA BSTAN PA CUNG ZAD KYANG MI SRID BLO, ,THEG BAR GYUR BA LDOG PA'I DON DANG YANG, ,PHA ROL PA NYID BRAL BA YIN GYI, ,KHO BO CHAGS NI MA YIN TE, ,RANG LA DAM BYA BA MED PA'I PHYIR RO, 

,KHO BO CHAGS MA YIN TE means don't look to us for an opinion about emptiness. Why? ,RANG LA DAM BYA BA MED PA'I PHYIR RO, We have such an advanced position that we don't take any position.

Nagarjuna said that sometimes, and Chandrakirti said that sometimes.

Then these people read those books and said, oh, if these really cool emptiness meditators, Nagarjuna and Chandrakirti, two of the greatest emptiness thinkers, if they say it's a good position to not take any position at all, then I should try to follow that. Okay?

Now, $300. Everybody woke up, Robert. It does work. You ready? Okay, tell me if we run out.

I'll slow down. What does it mean when Nagarjuna and Chandrakirti says, I don't take any position? Because obviously they wrote thousands of pages. Up to you, Mr. Haggarty.

[Maria: It means that Arya Nagarjuna understood emptiness and understood that any position he would take would come from his seeds.]

Nice. $300.

We don't take any position which does not come from our seeds. Okay, got it? That's okay. Whatever position we take about emptiness, we say the microphone exists or the microphone doesn't exist.

What position you take in your life depends on what seeds you planted in the past, which means how much did you help other people understand emptiness. Okay?

Your emptiness understanding is coming from seeds, from how much you tried to help other people understand emptiness.

And I think it's important to say that you should try to help other people understand emptiness, even if you're not sure yet what to say. It's still, you are planting seeds to understand emptiness more. It is better to share what you understand than not to share. Then be honest.

It's very important to be honest. This is how much I understand about emptiness. There's a lot I don't understand about emptiness, but here's what I understand so far.

When you meet an irritating person, they are coming from you, somehow. I don't understand it exactly, but there's no irritating person that you ever met who was not a mirror of yourself. You can say that much, right? You can understand that much.

Then you can say, look, I'm still studying. There's many books about emptiness. You can study for 50 years emptiness. You won't finish all the books. You can be honest, but it's a good seed to try, to try to explain what you know so far.

I always try to teach emptiness to the person next to me on the airplane. Just slowly. First I spill coffee on them, and then I say, you know where that came from? It's a good conversation starter. So, you will take position on emptiness. You have a position already. It may not be fully developed yet, but still, a baby position on emptiness from a correct source is much better than nothing. You can really help people. Then that plants a seed, and then your position gets clearer and clearer from your seed. So try. Try to share with other people.

Tell them, look, I'm not a big expert, I don't know everything, but this is how much I understand. If you understand emptiness well, you will not get upset at people. That's a sign.

You can say that much, right? So, try. Then you plant seeds, but you never take a position on emptiness which is not coming from your seeds. You will never take a position on emptiness which is not coming from your seeds.

So Arya Nagarjuna, Master Chandrakirti, to shock people, these great emptiness masters say, that people say, what do you think about emptiness? They say, I have no opinion. I have no opinion. But they obviously didn't mean they had no position.

But some people, early in West China, when Buddhism first got there a thousand years ago, it came, pieces of Buddhism came from India. Then people heard pieces, and then they started to come up with some really strange ideas. There were strange little Dharma centers. There were no monasteries. There were little Dharma centers, each one led by somebody who had been to India, maybe for a week, you know, Xuanzang for 17 years. Different quality.

Some really amazing Dharma centers and some really bad ones. But it happens when these teachings reach a new country or a new part of the world. Usually they're messed up for a while.

Especially Diamond Way gets messed up for a while. Then after a while, other people come and say, that's not what they mean.

It doesn't mean you don't take any position. It means whatever position you take is going to come from helping other people understand emptiness. You will only have, how good your position is will depend on how much you try to help other people. The very easiest thing to say is, somehow, if you understand emptiness, you won't get upset. Then they're going to check you and see if you get upset. Which is the benefit of being a teacher. Trying to be a teacher.

We're going to do this meditation and we're going to analyze what kind of position each of us has about emptiness. What do I understand about emptiness? Then we're going to try to imagine how to plant the seeds to improve it. Even those understandings come from seeds, and those come from helping other people. That's meditation 16.

We are recording the 31. Our goal is to reach 101 meditations for Five Houses. Then they'll be online and you can use them whenever you want. It's going to take me, I don't know how many we finished, 35 something. We're about one third of the way through. I'll continue for another year or two until we get to 101 meditations. That's the goal.

There's some kind of scam. Dharma scam. If you sign up, if you donate one dollar a day to Five Houses. Five Houses needs money because they don't charge anything technically. Some of the other organizations charge you. Five Houses doesn't charge you for teaching. They charge you for food and for house and for travel and things like that. They don't charge you for teaching. They need support for their teachers. Their teachers are the skinniest of all the organizations because they don't get any payment. Me and Tim are trying to find ways to help them, pay them some money. Every year we talk about, should we charge people? Because it's difficult. It's very difficult to raise the money for these five houses, ACI.

Then every year we decide the same thing that we don't want to charge. In the monastery you never get charged. You finish the whole Geshe course 25 years, you never pay one dollar for a class. Somehow it works. We would like to keep that going for free. That's the way we've been so far for 35 years. 35 years we haven't charged and we'd like to keep it up.

That means we have to do all kinds of weird things like sell rocks from Diamond Mountain.

You think I'm kidding. Where's that? In my bag? A blue bag? No, on the side. If it's there, I don't know, I gave it away, maybe. No. No, maybe not. Okay, later I'll sell you rocks later. Okay, so let's meditate. Get ready for meditation. It's somewhere, I don't know where it is.

Meditation 31 on Emptiness

When we meditate in a group it's important to try not to move around, try to be quiet. It's more powerful, but we have to be more quiet.

(33:32) This will be about half an hour.

Please relax your face. Little smile, not crazy.

I find it helpful to relax my eyelids and my forehead. Push your shoulders back slightly.

Tighten your lower abdomen, your tummy, a little bit.

Mainly stay relaxed, stay happy, and stay sharp, stay aware.

Try not to space out.

You're very, very lucky to have a chance to meditate.

You can't see emptiness directly unless you meditate regularly for about an hour a day. And that's the only thing that's going to help you with death and what happens to you after you die. So, you're so lucky to be able to meditate. You're so lucky to have a chance.

This country isn't at war locally. This country has enough food.

We're not in danger right now, direct danger, so we're lucky we have a chance to meditate.

So, I've meditated for many years, and I still like to do the breathing practice before. 

Breathing practice is a famous preparation for meditation. It is not a meditation, but it's a famous preparation for meditation. From the times of Abhidharma 2,000 years ago.

I like to do a hundred breaths. I know ten is kind of famous, but in my mind, I cannot focus unless I do a hundred breaths first. So, we're going to watch 100 breaths, and the out-breath is the first half. The in-breath is the second half.

Breathe in a relaxed way, and slowly, I don't think it works to fight with your mind and force it to watch your breath. I kind of like to pretend my mind is like a bad dog, and I say, come on, you know, let's meditate. Come over here. Let's check out this breath.

I like to go slow. I let my mind wander a little bit. I don't try to lock him down right away. But within a hundred breaths, after going off the breath a couple of times, I will calm down. The mind will calm down, and I bring the mind to my breath.

So, we'll do a hundred breaths like that.

Keep your eye on your breath. You'll think about other stuff.

Bring your mind back. Estimate the number you think where you were, and come back. Okay?

Here we go.

***100 breaths***

Then we'll start the preliminaries. Please invite someone to meditate with you, across from you, facing you. Invite someone that you really respect for their understanding and for their kindness.

It could be someone who's alive now. It could be a historical person. It could be someone you dream about meeting, and I like to say sit knee to knee with them.

Sit facing each other, almost touching knees, and let them bless your meditation. It's very, very good for your meditation to imagine that there's a very good person, someone that you really admire, sitting in front of you. A good example.

It could be anybody. Someone that means a lot to you, and ask them to bless you with their presence and their calmness during this meditation.

They're a good example.

I like to spend about eight breaths on each step. There are seven classical steps in meditation preparation. Somehow ten breaths is a little bit too long for me, but a little bit less than that.

You don't want to get hung up on the preliminaries, but you also want to make sure you do each one carefully.

Now offer them some small object that represents your respect for them and your love for them. I like to use a flower, or maybe a small glass of water. I like to use something simple. Small diamond.

Now we try to remember something we did this week that hurt people, hurt somebody, and feel some sadness and regret for it. When we think about the mistakes we made, it helps to remove that power during the meditation. It makes our mind more clear. It could be anything.

Maybe you said something to somebody. Maybe you gossiped about somebody. Maybe you were just jealous of somebody.

It's so healthy to admit the mistakes we make. I think the sign of a good person is not that they don't make mistakes. The sign of a good person is that they are willing to think about them and talk about them and clean them up.

And then equally, think about some good things you did this week. I think all of us here, if you're sitting here meditating, you're probably doing a lot of good things. Probably some of those good things became habit. You just do this job to help Five Houses or other organizations. You just have a job helping them or you do things to help, and it became a habit. And you don't really think about how lucky you are to have a chance to help and how wonderful it is that you are helping.

That kind of proves, if you're here and you're helping the work of these organizations, you have a tremendously good seed in your heart. Sometimes you should think about it and appreciate it in a way which is not proud, but which is sincere. And appreciate that you have the chance to do good things. Appreciate that you took the chance. Appreciate how quickly it might end. Human life is so fragile.

And celebrate the good things you're doing.

A lot of people think it's wrong to celebrate the good things you're doing. That's a mistake. We have to reinforce our habits, the good habits we have.

We have to celebrate.

For me, the next preliminary is the most difficult.

We ask that during the rest of today, up to our meditation tomorrow, that somebody teaches us something. We learn something from other people. Sometimes it's a formal teaching. Sometimes it's just by good example. But make a request to the universe. Today, may I learn something new that improves me. We can all improve something. And if we're lucky, we'll meet someone who helps us move further on. And it could be a conversation. It could be a class. It could be a book. But ask for teachings today.

And be open to those teachings. You can learn from everybody. Everybody has something to teach us. We can see something good in everyone that's a good example for us.

And then pray for the long life of your good friends, Dharma friends, good people in the world, even if we don't know them personally. 

Pray for the long life and health of the people who... There are bad people. There are people who say and do bad things. They're sometimes famous. And then the quiet good people, sometimes they're not so famous. But I think there's more of the good people. And it's good to give them some thought. Think about how lucky you are to have good people around you and pray for their long life. Actively pray that they should live a long life and influence us.

Now we'll start the meditation.

I'd like you to imagine that you're on that airplane. Maybe if you flew here to this area, to the local city, imagine that you're on that plane again. In my life, that's when I meet people I don't know. Most often it's... I have to travel on a plane or something and I'm sitting next to somebody who I don't know. So imagine that you're sitting next to someone on the way home from this program.

You start to have a conversation and they come to know that you're interested in Buddhism. And they say, I heard about this idea called emptiness and maybe you can tell me more about it.

Then I imagine they pick up a glass of water that the airplane staff gave them, a glass of water. They pick it up and they say, you know, what's your idea? What's your position? What's your opinion about this glass? Is it emptiness? Is there emptiness here?

And then try to imagine what you would say to a stranger.

Yes, there's emptiness in your hand. There's emptiness of glass.

Then they say, well does that mean you believe the glass is not here?

And then you say, well, no, there is a glass there, but it's not the glass you thought was there.

Do you like this water? Is it a nice glass to you?

Yes, I'm happy I have this glass of water.

Well then, where does it come from? It’s something you did to help other people. The reason this glass is in your hand is that you shared something with somebody in the past. And there's no glass in your hand that doesn't come that way. And that's the emptiness of the glass.

Then they go deeper and they say, well, what's the emptiness of your idea of emptiness? What's the emptiness of your idea of emptiness?

And you say, it doesn't come from anywhere except the seeds that I put in my mind by trying to help other people understand what's really happening in their life. My position about emptiness is that it doesn't come from its own side. And the position doesn't come from its own side.

I have this position because I tried to help other people in the past.

Then they say, oh, so you don't really have any position.

You say, no, no, that's not what I said. I said, I don't have a position that didn't come from trying to help people understand emptiness in the past.

Personally, I found that with this kind of conversation, you should make it short. And I try to change the subject. I always try to give the other person a chance to talk about something they'd like to talk about. So I ask them about their family, or where they're going, or what kind of job do you have?

I leave the emptiness thing alone. And I leave the Buddhism thing alone, and I just try to bring out the other person and listen to their life.

I don't try to make them a Buddhist, or I don't try to lecture to them. I just try to show some interest in their life.

Then you're up there in the airplane, you're over the world, you can send down some rays of light from the airplane, try to touch the people on the ground, with what just happened in this five-minute conversation with somebody on the airplane.

There's a famous story that one teacher was trying to explain emptiness to somebody like on an airplane, but they wouldn't listen, and finally they just punched him in the head. And they said, well, at least I'll make an impression. They will remember me next life, and we can keep trying to have this conversation. You may not ever see this person again in this life, but you have just planted the seeds to serve them in the next life.

Then slowly open your eyes, take a stretch.

I like to use there's a meditation app, what's it called? Insight Meditation App. It's got, I'll be honest, and I'm not being critical, but most of the meditations are just a joke, and all this weird stuff. Trust the process, everything's going to be alright. Rivers know what to do. Chakras 101. You know, I personally, because I had a chance to study with great teachers, I don't read any of that stuff, I just go to the timer, and the timer is quite good and quite useful, so I encourage you to check it out.

Every three years one of our organizations says they're going to make an app. It's been about 20 years now, and I'm still waiting. In the meantime, we can use this one if you want.

Alright. I'll see you, what time, Tim? So take a 20 minute break, and then we'll be having a translation class with Gibson Chan. People wince when I say there's a translation class. They go (looking sceptical), you know. And it's difficult to follow the class, and I always tell the story that when I was in the Geshe course, and I was in, I was like in my 10th year of lower middle way, and the teacher forced us to go to an advanced class. These people were maybe five, six years ahead of us, and he forced us to go to their class. We sat there, and I had no idea what's going on. I had no idea what they're talking about, and I got impatient, and I got sort of pissed off. I'm like, why I have to sit through this. I don't understand what they're talking about.

The teacher said, and I asked him, why are you forcing me to go to this class? He said, come back to me in five years, and tell me what happens.

Five years later, I was in the debate ground. That subject came up, and I had all these seeds in my mind, and I understood it immediately. Then I realized it was because the teacher forced me to go to a class to put the seeds in there five years ago. Just relax. Sit in translation class.

You don't have to like it. You just have to be open and put the seeds in your mind. They will grow, and you cannot stop them. Later you'll thank me. That's what your parents say, right? You'll thank me later. Okay, pee-pee break.

See you later. Thank you.

There’s a reason why I'm wearing a cowboy hat and boots. But you're going to find out later, okay? So don't be scared. All right, here we go.

So, this next canto, this next section, we're in the angel-devil, right? And the next section is called Objections to Emptiness. And the devil starts to say, look, this emptiness thing is very interesting, but I think it's kind of stupid. And I think there's a couple of problems with it. And he starts giving us problems, okay? And that's one of the beautiful things about this book. It's just so brilliant to have the devil talk, to have your tendency to hold things as self-existent, to allow them to talk, to allow them to make their case in the court. It's very interesting. It's very beautiful, okay?

So, he says, next, first picture is the guys with the pot, the pot, okay? Yeah, okay.

So this is how, yeah, hey they have a microphone. So this is how they picture devils in the Western world, which is kind of funny.

There's a famous writer called, what's his name? C.S. Lewis, yeah. He said, there's a beautiful book called The Screwtape Letters. If you have time, read it. It's a small book, very small. Screwtape is an old word for the devil. And he's a Christian writer, but it's a very beautiful book about the devil. And it's the same as our devil, okay? He talks the same, he thinks the same, all right? So, if you get a chance, you should read it, okay?

He says, in that book, one of the best things that happened for the devil in the last few hundred years is that nobody believes he exists. Everyone thinks it's a joke. And they write, they paint these funny little guys. For me, this is the guy who wants me to eat cookies at dinner.

Why Diamond Mountain puts 20 cookies on my table? I don't know. But I have to look at them. And then the devils come in my head, you know, and they're like, mmm, I wonder if the chocolate chip is different from the chocolate one. I'm just checking, I'm not eating them.

So, they say it's the devil in the devil business. If you're in the devil business, you're very happy that modern people don't believe in the devil. Or they think it's some kind of joke, or they think it's the person who's trying to ruin your diet, or something like that, okay? They're very happy, the devil's very happy.

But our devil, I would say he's very sophisticated, and he's very clever, and he's very smart. He lived about 400 years ago, right? And he knows how to be a good devil, and he knows how to debate.

And he says, look, you angel, your big thing is dependent or origin… events. Your big thing is dependent orig… events, okay? We'll get used to it in about five years, okay? Then I'll change it again.

So anyway, your big thing is dependence, right? You believe that, right, Miss Angel?

And she says, yeah, everything has a cause. You can find the cause of anything. And the cause of the pot on the stove is not what you thought it was. It's not a factory someplace in Japan or something who's making pots. That's not where things come from. So, if you really understand dependence, then within a few hours you can see emptiness directly.

If you see emptiness directly, you are going to be a Buddha and nothing can stop you. And soon, very soon, like in one second… Time goes faster, I think, for Arya. They're like, yeah, okay, seven, die seven times, no problem. I can do that. And probably it'll be fun, okay?

So anyway, the devil has a very interesting argument. He says, do I, oh Miss Angel, do I have dependent events?

What do you think?

Yeah, he exists, okay? He really exists. He's the one who makes your life less than joyful.

If you're not very happy right now, you are enjoying the devil in your mind, okay? I'll say it again.

If you're not extremely happy, throwing your computer in joy. Those Singapore people are so rich, they can just throw computers. So, if you ... anyway, if you have the ... if you have the angel inside of you, you should be very super ... just kind of happy all the time.

It doesn't mean bad things don't happen, okay? Angels still get flat tires, okay? And they still, you know, somebody puts the wrong beans in their dinner and they boop all night. That happens, but still they feel happy, you know?

Do they have some pain? Yeah, but they feel joyful all the time.

But the question of whether the devil has dependence. You guys said yes, right?

100 bucks? His name is ... his new name is Ibai. Ibai means 100 in Chinese language. Ibai, right? That's the only Chinese I know, after so many years. Kind of lazy, I'd say. Now I forgot what's it called.

Oh, somebody explained to us the dependent ... the dependence of the devil. I think there's a lot of kinds, but ... Tim, you can't take money from your own organisation.

[student: So, as we were studying back the other day, everything is coming from the luminous pictures which popped up …]

You're on the right track ... 

[student: from our past deeds, how we treated other people. So, our devil is also coming out from our luminous pictures when we didn't treat well other people, I guess.]

Oh, now that's a $200 answer.

Yeah, the devil in your mind exists, okay? Really exists. It's not a guy, okay? It's a girl. No, I'm kidding.

The devil exists in your mind, but it's a way of thinking, right? It's just a way of thinking.

You wanna make more money?

She proved that the devil has dependent events, okay? Dependent occurring. Does the devil have emptiness? Just a hundred bucks.

[student: Yes. It's not not coming from its own side.]

Okay! Alright, nice. He's ... the devil's not not coming from his own side.

So, the devil has emptiness, and the devil has dependence. Therefore the devil's going to get you out of Samsara, right? In a way. Not not coming from seeds.

Say again? [unclear audience] Okay, but is he going to get you out of Samsara?

Can the devil get you out of samsara?

Yeah, who said that? Understanding. Hundred bucks. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, if you understand the devil, that can help you get rid of the devil, okay?

In fact, it's the only way to get rid of the devil, alright? Understanding the devil, the devil's dependence and the devil's emptiness will defeat the devil, right? Okay?

So, to conclude this section, and it's beautiful, and by the way, you can spend a hundred years with this book. It'll come out in Malaysia, if all goes well, right? And it'll be even translated into some languages, if all goes well. It's 600 pages long. I think you can just keep it with you for the rest of your life, and when you sleep, or if you have someplace else that you sit for a long time during the day, you can read parts of it for the rest of your life. It's so deep, I think you could read it for the rest of your life, okay?

Alright, so I think it'll come out in in Malaysia, I hope so, right Rosa? Can I say that? Where is she? She's hiding. Will Devil Angel come out in Malaysia? Okay, you heard her. Alright, yay. Then you can use it for a long time.

Here's the devil, now the devil comes back. Who could ever take something that is really there, the fact that things depend on other things, and put it up on a ladder which is made of rabbit horns? Okay? The devil says to the angel, you are making a ladder. You got that next picture you guys?

Yeah, by the way, I asked the AI six times to make a ladder out of rabbit horns, then I tried deer horns, and rhinoceros horns, and it just refused. Sometimes it says, that's a dirty picture, we can't make that. And I'm like, horns? Rabbit horns? Anyway, this is the best I could do, alright?

If it's empty, does it mean it doesn't work? That's what the devil is saying. If it's empty, it doesn't work, right? Can we say if it's empty, it cannot work? Right. Say again?

Nice, okay. If I had more money I would give you ... I promise. Yeah, say again.

It works because it is empty. It works because it is empty. Nice, okay.

So again, the devil's trying to confuse things. And I have to say, I've in my long life, I've had many people come up to me and say, I don't think I can follow this teaching, and I don't ... it's not comfortable for me. And I say, why? And they say, because you keep talking about emptiness, and my life's empty enough already, you know? I don't need more emptiness, you know? If you'd say something, be nice to people, that, I'm okay with that. But keep talking about emptiness over and over again, it seems very negative, it seems like nothing exists.

And this is one of those cases in history, when whole countries have misunderstood emptiness. Like a whole country has misunderstood emptiness, and people sit down and meditate and stare at the wall.

When I was taking a Buddhism course in Princeton, I remember the teacher said, there's an Indian boy in the class, he knows all about Buddhism, he's gonna lead us in a meditation. And we were all like, cool. And they took us outside, not the same tree, but a similar tree. They took us outside under a tree, and there's like 10 students there, and the Indian boy brought a ... what do you call it? A dozen eggs. Chicken eggs, cooking eggs, carton of eggs.

And then he said, okay, this is a special meditation they taught me about emptiness. And we're like, wow. Then he, each person, he cracked the egg and put it on their head. That time I had hair. He cracked the egg and put the egg on the head. And then he said, okay, close your eyes and meditate, you know? And then you feel the egg going like this [sliding down your head], you know? 

I was like, I can do this, I can do this. And I was following the egg down my head, and then I'm wondering, I wonder if it's going to reach my shirt? Do I have to change before my next class?

At Princeton you have five minutes to get to your next class. They ring a bell, you know?

And then it's going like this, and then he said, okay, stop. And I'm like, yeah. And that was my emptiness meditation. That's the one I learned first, okay?

What I mean is, the whole countries of people in the past have misunderstood this meditation. And you get things where people stare at walls, and try to think about nothing, and things like that. It's very, very common. It happens a lot. I think one thing for us, if you've had, if you've been lucky to have the classics, Gibson Chan teaching you Mind Only. Where are you?

Hi, I got a question for you, do you mind?

So, you do mind.

So listen, you're translating a Mind Only text, right? And it's the birth of the Mind Only School. Yes. Then there's Word Smith, who's translating Mind Only for 10 years now, and his book just wants to talk about kunshi, kunshi, kunshi, foundation consciousness. And your book just wants to talk about the three characteristics, three characteristics. Why?

[Gibson: I have this question a long time ago, I couldn't find the answer.]

Okay, sit down, sit down.

I'm curious about it, I'm curious when it changed, I don't know. At some point it changed, right? They don't talk much about ... yeah, I don't know yet, I'll tell you later. Okay, that's a nice question to ask.

Okay, anyway, I would say that as, as modern people interested in emptiness, and I don't say Buddhist, you don't have to be Buddhist. I think DCI, which started 17 years ago, the idea of DCI was very radical, and it was, can you learn these ideas and not be a Buddhist? Can you not go to temples? Can you not light incense? Can you not take tantric initiations like the old way? Things like that. Can you follow a way of life where you understand those ideas, but you don't have the, what do you call it, the rituals and things like that? And that was, that is what DCI is meant to do. 

And I would say, my last teacher passed away recently, Geshe Lothar passed away, less than a year ago, I think one year is coming up. And then I felt a change in my life, I thought, well my last intimate connection to the monastery is finished. And then I was thinking about the future of the monastery and things like that. And I feel like, when I think about DCI for example, and it's just an example, YSI is similar, but when I think about DCI, and I think about the monastery, to be very honest, I think DCI is teaching these ideas better. Okay? I believe that, I really believe that, and I don't say it lightly. I love the monastery, and it made me… My whole life was created there. But I have to say, I think for using the ideas of emptiness in your real life, there's no comparison, there's really no comparison.

People in the traditional teachers and students in the monastery, they don't think this way at all. The way you guys think, they don't think at all. Okay? It's kind of strange, okay?

So it goes on like that. The question is, what do you do about it? Do you go around, put on a special hat and say, I'm the only Buddhist who understands Buddhism, and I'm not a Buddhist, okay? Do you go around…, I don't think that's good either. I think to me, the way to affect other people is to practice what you learned and prove it with your life. Okay? You don't convince other people by talking, you convince other people by living a successful life. And I don't mean success is just money, but it doesn't hurt to have some money. But it's happiness.

I would say, if a group of people understand dependent events, that's still kind of hard, or emptiness, then as a group, they should be more harmonious, they should be more happy, more successful not as a business, but more successful as people, more successful people. And they should die well. They should know how to die, and they should die well.

I would say that I'm pretty happy about what's happened with DCI so far, and I had a plan for a long time with it, for how it should go. We get, what do you call, obstacles sometimes, but we go, keep going. And I feel a strange thing in my heart, that it's more what the Buddha wanted, than big temples, or big expensive statues, and things like that, you see? I believe that. So, I feel very happy about it, I feel very proud about it, okay?

What I wanted to say though, is how do you… Should we go around to all the temples, and tell people, we're right, and, and you don't understand emptiness. Is that what we should do? And I think, we have to talk about it. I think, what do you do when you meet someone who really misunderstands emptiness, or dependence, or even Diamond Way, how do you, what should you do, you know? Should you…, how do you interact with them? What should we do? How should we go forward? And I think, I don't think the main thing is talking, I think the main thing is to be a good person, be a happy person, and be a joyful person, and be helping everybody. Then you don't have to start a new philosophy, or you don't have to do that. Just be who you are. What do you call it in DCI, what's it called?

Success is love, they have a beautiful thing in DCI called success is love, and that's one of the life tools. In DCI we have 12 tools to use in your life for each DCI level, and every DCI level we create 12 new tools. 12 times 17 is, I don't know, huh? 204. So, we've created 204 different principles to live by, and can I brag about you David, is that okay? All right, you got it with you? No?

He's got something in his pocket. He's looking for it, I'm just gonna… Why don't you come up here, sit here for one second, okay?

So, on the last DCI level we wrote, or the one before that, we made some special cards. They look like gambling cards. I designed them to, me and Rosa designed them to be like gambling cards, but each card has a picture of one of the DCI ideas called life tool. The name of the life tool is on one side and the picture is on the other side.

So for the last DCI level, last DCI level? We created these cards and people who signed up got a pack of cards to use. Like that. And we're also trying to convince people hopelessly to do the Good Night Book Club, go to bed at 10, get up at 6, be fresh, change your life, really change it.

Yeah, there's the cards, Rosa designed them, and they're English and Chinese right now.

So anyway, my friend David said, Geshehla that's so retro. You know retro? Retro means old man. We should make a, you know, we should combine the Good Night Book Club and the playing cards together, and make a special clock that you can carry around. But the clock will quiz you about the DCI ideas, so that, like when you go to bed you touch the clock and it says, what's the picture when they're sharing the doughnut? What's it mean? And then you have to answer, okay?

So, do you want to…, it's not ready yet, it's not ready to distribute, it's close, we're gonna let it out, not this time Jenny, next time. But you're here and you know before the other organizers, so I'm gonna ask David to describe it. Okay, and again, we just, he just created the first prototype, and we still need some…, we added some features. But I thought just for the Diamond Mountain people, and the other 2,000 online, but I thought he did such a cool job, and just spend a few minutes and tell us what it does.

[David: Thank you so much, Geshehla, for all the instructions and every, you know, the prototype and also thank you Rosa for helping all the way through. So, what I have in my hand is a little device, I don't know if you can zoom in. It's small. It's small because we want you to carry it with you. And the way it works is that we feel that there are so many… You know, we attended classes, we learned the life tools, and we saw all the Idims, but after life goes on, it's hard to carry it with you and to remember it with you. So we thought, why not we have something that's not on your phone and not distracting, and you can keep it with you all the time, and it will give you one Idim… Sorry, I will slow down, and give you one Idim, one a day, and on the clock, you can see there's a Idim in the background. That's a very special message for you today, and also there's a clock. You can click on it, and you can see. It says, Arya, breakthrough thinkers, the evolution of all sentient life.]

So you can test yourself during the day, quiz yourself, especially in the special room.

[David: And that's randomly generated, by the way. It's randomly picked, so very special message for today, And also you can have a chance to use the first steps, you know, have a question in your mind, what are you facing, and who else could this help. Geshehla, could you tap, and we can draw a special message card?

Yes, and here it is, a special card. It says, the video camera, how seeds are planted when we share a pen. Thank you. Thank you.]

I just got a new name for it. The new generation fortune cookie.

[David: Now we finally have a real fortune cookie for all the Chinese restaurants. And also it has a meditation timer, which you could also use, and also it has a library, if you, you know, they have all the DCI Life Tools, level one to level seven so far. I also have like a quiz that Geshehla just said, you can have a multiple choice question to test your understanding of the Idims. So that's still under development, and we're working hard on it, so we'll let you know about more updates. Thank you.]

[Tim: David, I have a question for you.]

Oh, oh, just push the button, don't ask a question.

[Tim: I'm wondering, this is an awesome product for DCI. But I'm wondering, what if we were to do something like make a whole bunch of images for Lam Rim, for example? Is that something that we could potentially do and make it available for a different worldview group?]

[David: That would be a wonderful idea, we can do. Yeah. For sure. We can do it.]

[Tim: Thank you.]

Cool. Also, because I have trouble when, like when I'm traveling, when I'm at home, I put my computer and my phone in the bag, and I put it next to my wife, on the floor next to her side of the bed. So I have to sneak over there to get into the computer after 10 p.m., which is impossible with my wife. So, I like it, David's idea, because it's so compact, you can have a ... no, by the way, it does not go on the internet. You can't get on the internet with this little box, okay? Which is good, you see, but it does act as an alarm clock. So, I have trouble waking up without ... I have a big alarm clock, it makes noise, and if I had this little alarm clock, it'd be so cool. Yeah, so, I'm very excited about it. And he, lots of people propose things to me all the time, every day almost, and only a small percent actually do it, and I'd like to thank David again.

Is there enough memory to fit ACI stuff on there? Okay, Tim, we'll split the development. No, I couldn't.

Next picture you guys. What the ... how are we doing on time? What time do I have to stop? Say again? From now? Oh, okay. All right, they're gonna fall asleep before then.

All right, there's a ... you heard of Ribbongira? Gibson? Horn-on-Rabbit, and you heard of Nam-khe-me-tok? Nam-khe-me-tok.

Yeah, flower that grows in midair.

And now I got a new one for you. Say, RUBEL KYI PU. RUBEL KYI PU. The fur on a turtle's back. 

You're supposed to laugh. Okay, like fur. Okay, yeah.

Geshehla, why don't you take a shower more often, and change your clothes sometimes? I don't have time, okay? I don't have those minutes, you know? I have administration problems, not translating. Right, Rob Rossinger? He and I have a common interest. We solve all the problems of all the boards of directors. Okay. But I can't do both, sorry. All right.

So, irritating person, coming from you or not?

Yeah, how can you make more of them?

Yeah, keep complaining about the administration work you have to do. And ... oops.

Yeah, keep complaining, keep whining about your life, and get grumpy and things like that, okay?

If you want more to grow.

So, what does this turtle represent? In the text right now?

The irritating person or persons who don't come from you. Okay? They are the same as a turtle with Jigme, our generation, with a beetle haircut on their back, okay? With big hair on their back. Don't exist, no such thing. All right? Okay.

But, and then the angel and the devil, they go a different way, okay? After the hair on the turtle's back, they go a different way. Next picture.

I don't get upset actually very often. It's hard to get me upset, except when I drive. And, I don't know what it is. My wife doesn't like to drive me, seriously. She said ... she's in Tucson right now, seeing our granddaughter. And I'm like, you want to drive home with me? She says, no, I don't know. And I'm like, what's wrong? She says, you never say one word on a four-hour trip driving. And I said, I'm just trying to stay alive, you know? It's all these crazy people driving around me. I'm just watching for the next stupid person to do something dangerous. Like, I'm really scared when I drive. And I'm very serious when I drive. I'm always ... waiting for the person to do something wrong. And I don't trust anybody. When I'm in a car, I don't trust anybody.

And so, I get really upset. So, are those irritating drivers real or not?

Yeah, they are real, and they can kill you. And it's a good way to die. It's a very common way to die. So, until the automatic cars get better ... I think there'll come a day in David's generation, you'll probably help it occur, when they'll think it was insane to let people drive their own car. They'll say, what a terrible thing, 150,000 people die every year. Don't let people drive their own car, you know? It'll come. Arizona will be the last place. You know, in Arizona you still don't have to wear a helmet when you ride a motorcycle. It's the only state, I think, in the United States. Because we have freedom.

So, anyway, people who drive bad do exist. They really are there, but they are not who we thought they were, right? And, who can explain the water on the floor in the bathroom? A hundred bucks. You choose. This is a DCI, I mean, we could ask David's invention, but ... Let's do Brian, yeah. Yay, Brian! Yay, tech people!

[Brian: So, basically, when you're …]

Wait, when you teach, you have to tell a story.

[Brian: Right. So, you're at Diamond Mountain…]

Yeah, like you're teaching Kiri, okay?

[Brian: Okay. You're at Diamond Mountain. Then you have to wake up at 4 a.m. to be here at 5.30 or something.]

To fix the tech table.

[Brian: Right. And then, just when you step…, it's cold in here, right? There's a lot of wind. So, you go to the bathroom, and then you step on the little mat, a little bath mat, and you forgot your slippers, which actually I did. So, when you step into the mat, it's damp. It's so wet, and the water is so cold. So, you get so upset. Francisco, last night, when you took your shower, you did a mess, man. And now my feet are so cold. Oh, wait, but maybe it was Patchi. He took a shower before me.]

Now you got it.

[Brian: So, I go to the room, and I'm like, who the hell left the mat wet? And then they were like, Brian, actually, you woke up in the middle of the night. You were so nervous about missing the class, that you just wanted to go, and you took a shower. Then you realized that it wasn't the time yet, and you came out of the shower all wet. So, you left it like that. And then you're like, oh my god, you guys are right. The real culprit is me.]

Good, nice. Yay!

Every time somebody drives badly around you, it's you. You did something before. And it's funny. I have a special problem with people tailgating me. They drive too close behind me. My wife almost died this way. The car was destroyed. Someone followed her too close, and she stopped, and they hit her. So, I have a special thing. I don't know what it is, people always tailgating me, people always close to me, pushing, pushing, you know. Then I, you know, just while I'm thinking about it, I call Rosa, where's the book? You know? Where's the book? We're going to have Diamond Mountain, you know? We're going to have it delivered during the class. Just, and Rob's going to be there, and then Gibson's going to need the book, and I'm pushing, I'm pushing, and then I'm like, duh. Okay, you can always find … Probably you're doing ... whatever caused the problem in your life, probably you're still doing it. Not necessarily, but probably you're still doing it, okay?

So, try to find the things that you're doing that are doing similar. So, I give her another extra day to get the books out, and people are driving about three inches farther away. It works, right?

The nice thing is she never gets angry at me. I don't know why. I think she's taking drugs or something. Okay, no, I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding.

Now, since we had such a good explanation of water from Brian, I'm ready to do my little ... you guys ready? Tech table? It's going to start with a wagon, right? No, no, don't do that. No, no, no, that's the last one. They have numbers on them. Okay. Yeah, okay. I have a pitch for you, which is related to the cowboy hat, okay? Sunam, you ready? Yeah. Not yet, not yet. We put the hook when you're ... okay.

So, I want to tell you everybody a story about Diamond Mountain, so you understand about Diamond Mountain, okay?

I don't know, 1849, they discovered gold near San Francisco, and all these people, it was called the Gold Rush of 49 or something like that, and all these people got wagons, people from New York, people who drink coffee from New York, they all bought wagons, and they all said, I'm going to get rich. And they started to take the trip to California, okay? The best route, because of the Rocky Mountains, see, the Rocky Mountains are too high, and there's like a wall between California and the rest of the world. The only place to get around the Rocky Mountains is to come down to southern Arizona. So, a lot of the wagons came through southern Arizona, and then went to San Francisco to find gold. And they needed water. And when they hit Arizona, there's no water, okay, at all. So, it's very difficult for them to get water.

Then, they found out that there's a place called Bear Springs, okay, and spring means the water comes up out of the ground from the stone. The water is stored by the mountains. The mountains have to have a special shape, and then the rain comes down rarely, but it collects under the ground in the mountains, and then it slowly comes out, it leaks out in a spring.

So, spring means like a natural little river of water, and Bear Springs is one of the only springs in southern Arizona. In hundreds of miles, there's just a few, and we have one of them here, okay? So it's kind of, that's why this property is so valuable, it's not the rocks, it's the water, okay?

People used to find heart-shaped rocks at Diamond Mountain and offer them to my teacher, and then he made a big announcement, no more heart rocks, I have enough.

So, anyway, next picture.

So, this person's father is named Cochise. We don't have a picture of Cochise himself, but he was an Indian leader, an American Indian native leader. Right here, he lived on this land, partly he lived on this land, and he was a very intelligent and a great leader, a good leader, and he was compassionate. He was a good person. This county is called Cochise County, this area, this state, this part of the state is called Cochise State. So his father was living here, he died here. His father died nearby here, right here. So, there was big fighting because these people lived here at the spring before the white people. That was their place, that was their place. They were living here. Then more and more people came in their wagons and they started to kill these people, they started to push them off of this land, okay? Next picture.

So, the United States government built a fort, and they put, I don't know, I think around, there were about a thousand soldiers here. Right here, you can see the place, it's called Fort Bowie, and it was built right next to here. You can walk there. If you go past the last retreat cabin, you're on Fort Bowie property. They built a big fort, and they had like a thousand heavily armed guys, and they had, many of them had fought in the Civil War. They were very violent and very good fighters, survivors of the Civil War. And they were really crazy people, good with guns, and they tried to kill all the native people around here. There were about 250 native warriors against a thousand American Army soldiers, and it was unclear who's going to win. Okay, next picture.

So, the fort needed the water from the spring. They also needed the water. That's the only water around here, and so they built a special house to protect the water. The water is right next to this house, this yellow house is the Lama house up there, and it's about a two-minute walk to the spring. You can see the spring water there.

So, they built this house about a hundred years ago or more, 150, it's a historic house in the United States. It has a, we're not allowed to change it actually, it's a historical house in the United States. But I'll tell you something really interesting, okay, and sad. If you look closely at the left side of the lower story, you see the windows? Two windows? They are skinny. They are not normal windows, okay? That was the original part of the house, and the windows are skinny and long. Why?

Easy to shoot people from the windows, and it's still, it's still there, you know, the windows are still there, you can see it. You can go see it, and it's very sad. The water is right there, so you can shoot anyone who uses the water, and so that's what was going on here. That's the history of this land, and it's a sad, it's a terrible history, okay? Next picture.

So, this is two handsome guys. When we got here, the spring was dying. The water was dying, and eventually it stopped completely, okay? So, the spring didn't work after some years. It was just stopped, there's no water anymore. You can see where it goes, you can see where the spring goes, but you don't see any water. So we dug deep wells here. If you want to dig down and get water here, you have to dig, sometimes 500 meters to get to water. You see what I mean? It's because it's a desert.

So, we were hoping to wake up the spring, and I called my teacher.This is my teacher's nephew, and he's Geshe Lothar. He passed away about a year ago, and we invited him here, okay? And we want help to wake up the spring, you know, so he has a special connection to ... Next picture.

This is Naga Arjuna, Naga Arjuna, Nagarjuna. And Nagarjuna, as you know you Bhagavad Gita people, was the greatest warrior of Indian history, and Naga means this water dragon, okay? They are like a dragon, but they can take the form of a human, they can show themselves as a human. And they used to come to Nagarjuna, they used to talk a lot.

Nagarjuna was a, the John Brady of his time, he was a great book collector, and he realized that some of the ancient Bodo Palamita, Prajnaparamita was missing in this world. And he figured out that the Nagas were doing Smaug. What's Smaug?

Yeah, Kiri, what's Smaug? He said, come on! Lord of the Rings, he's the dragon in the Lord of the Rings, and in the story, in the Lord of the Rings, he likes to sit on gold, and valuable things, and, and jewels. That's supposed to be true. It's supposed to be that water dragons… So, western dragons usually fly in the sky, water dragons, eastern dragons are usually in the bottom of the ocean, or water, they like to live in the water. So, anyway, they say that those Nagas came to this world to collect gold, and figured out that the Prajnaparamita, the perfection of wisdom, is more valuable than gold. So, they got excited about Prajnaparamita, and they stole some of the sutras, and took them to their water caves, okay?

Then there's a whole story about Arya Nagarjuna made deals with them. He was in like a business [man] with the Nagas, and he became the boss of the Nagas, Naga Arjuna. So they, everybody calls him Nagarjuna. Go back to Geshe Lothar.

So, the nephew of my teacher, who is Geshe Lothar, is a Naga expert, and he knows how to communicate with them. He knows how to get them to do things. And I'll tell you the truth, I didn't believe it. To be honest. And he said, I'll come there, and I'll fix your Naga problem. And I'm like, yeah, okay, I know you just want to come.

He came, and then Rob Rossinger is driving him around, and Geshe Lothar's like, there's a Naga here, there's a Naga here, there's a Naga here. You guys got to do special offerings to the Nagas, and you can wake up your water. And we're like, yeah, okay Geshela. It doesn't happen to be your favorite cookies also? He's like, yeah, they really like those. So he really did, right? He did a lot of Naga rituals here at the spring. And something else happened, next picture.

David Stumpf, is Susan here? Yeah, his wife Susan is here, great teacher, a wonderful teacher. When I did Maitri retreat, we shipped some yurts from Mongolia, and they came in these big boxes, and then we opened the boxes and we… There's all these sticks, and cloth, and pieces, and we don't know anything how to make a yurt, we don't know anything. Then this strange truck shows up, pickup truck with a camper on the back, and they drive up across the desert. There's no good road, just you drive across the desert. They stop, David and Sarahni get out, and they say, you guys need help putting together your yurts? And we're like, who are you? And they're like, oh, we just live nearby. And he built the yurts. They worked like crazy people, and they put it together. And David designed the water system at Diamond Mountain.

So, we have deep, deep wells, we have a few deep wells, we have a few old wells that don't work so good, and he built, I think, five miles, he laid five miles of pipes, okay? He's sick now, he has Parkinson's, I think, so he could not come. But you should pray for him, and if you get a chance, you should thank her to thank him, like send him some cookies or something, okay?

By the way, Sarahni was the treasurer at that time, that's the only reason we didn't go bankrupt, because she's tough with the treasurer.

So anyway, he built, he built the water system here, and it's very difficult to build, and it's very fragile. There's only a few wells, and the water is very difficult here, okay? Next picture.

When you drove here from Boowie, you saw new trees, hundreds and hundreds of them, and this is a company that wants to grow nuts. They want to sell nuts. What kind of nuts is that, pistachios? Pistachios. And thousands of trees, so they are sucking the water from the mountain. They're sucking the water from us, because they're below us, so they, their water comes up out of the pumps, and then the water is… We're losing water, here we're losing the water, and it's, it's legal, it's okay, in America that's legal. You know, they're, they can make their own well, and so they're growing in the middle of desert, which is kind of crazy. They are growing thousands of trees, which will… They're nuts, she says, they're nuts. What they have a right to do, in America they have the right to do it, okay? But anyway, we  have to think about our water. Next picture.

So luckily we have a Kat Ehrhorn, where is she? Yeah, Venerable Kading.

I guess about five years ago, I don't remember, we raised a hundred thousand dollars to grow trees here. There used to be a forest here, it was destroyed by the railroad. The railroad track is where the highway is now, Highway 10 is the old railroad track.

They grew cows here for free, just released them on the desert. Who survives, they put on the train. Send them to Chicago, kill them, put them into New York by the next morning. No refrigeration, there's no electricity at that time.

So, it's a big system, grow the cows here, put them on the train to Chicago, kill them in Chicago, get them to New York within a day or two. That's why people use so much spice in meat, because there was no refrigeration, and the meat was often rotten. So, human beings ate rotten meat for many centuries, and they invented French cooking. Okay, I'm not kidding, okay? It was to hide the smell of the rotten meat, okay?

So, anyway, they cut all the trees here. They didn't leave one tree for us. I mean, we have two trees, I think, left from that time. They cut all the trees and used them for the railroad, to make the fire in the train. So, that's why we don't have any trees.

So, we have a project to bring the trees back, but Kat said, before you bring the trees back, you have to stop the water from flowing down. You have to make dams. So, all that money we paid to feed volunteers and help to pay people, and they just make these dams. These are rock dams. They just, for months and months and months, years, they carry rocks in these mountains, and where the water goes quickly, they slow it down. Then the water sinks into the ground, and then we get it into our well. You see what I mean? And they did that for several years of hard work, and... next picture.

It worked, and the spring came back. And this is right behind the ... it's in front of the Lama house. You can shoot somebody, who comes there. Rob can, from the second floor, is really good. Okay. And I'm staying there in Venerable Gyelse's old house, and I can hear the spring. At night I can hear the spring. And it's very beautiful, and it's very rare.

So, we want to make a water system which uses the spring water, and it will be nice fresh water, mountain water. I even want to make, sell it like Perrier. I mean, it's the same as Perrier. It really is the same as Pellegrino or Perrier. This is ... I have a dream to make a diamond water, sparkling water. Qi Pao Xue. Jing Gang Shan De Qi Pao Xue.

So anyway, you know what's happening. In the old days, when you need money, you ask people to put it in your cowboy hat. So, I'm not kidding. In the church, they hand out the hat, you know. So, Venerable Sunam has been working on a new water system, and Rob was working for several years on it. And we have permission from the county, which is very difficult. We have permission to build a new water system. And we are now ... we have the status of a small town. So, we are considered a small town here, and we can have our ... Okay.

Here comes the part that you knew was coming. We need a hundred and eight thousand dollars to make the new water system. A hundred and eight. One zero eight thousand. And, how we fundraise at Diamond Mountain, we just say, my teacher said, when somebody's fundraising for something cool for future generations to live here and be in the retreat, you know, for hundreds of years, even if you don't have any money, get your finger in the pie. My teacher said, get your finger in the pie. Give five dollars, give six dollars, get your finger in the karma pie. And then, you know…

So what I'm asking today, here's my hat, give something, okay? I don't care, it doesn't matter, you know, I'm not asking you to do something you cannot do. And it's irresponsible to use your family money if your family does not agree, or if it's difficult for your family. You are not allowed to give that money, okay? In this room, you are not allowed to give family money without asking your family, and something comfortable for your family. Except me, I don't have to ask my wife, I'm going to tell her tomorrow.

So, you know, give what you can, don't not give, okay? Give something, give one dollar, give five dollars, it's okay. Get your finger in the pie, okay? And to pressure you, I will give twelve thousand, okay? Twelve five, twelve point five, twelve and a half thousand. Which means if someone match me, we have a quarter finished, understand? I will give twelve thousand five hundred, my wife and I, she doesn't know yet. And if someone match me, or if some group of people match me, we can get to twenty five, and that's a good start, and we'll keep bothering you for many years until we get the money, okay?

Now, several ways you can donate, you have a QR code you guys?

Yeah, there's the QR code, you can do it online, you can donate online, okay? Anything, okay? One dollar, I don't care. Or you can put it in a red envelope, we have a special white envelope if you prefer, and you can put it in this hat. This is the old cowboys custom for donations, okay? You want to pass it around? Maybe you put this inside, yeah, okay.

[Venerable Kading: Yesterday, about thirty more loose rock dams were constructed, which is amazing. And in the desert, this is a lifestyle that's very beneficial to adopt, so the other way you could donate is come out and throw a few rocks with us, anytime, very important.]

All right, I have a feeling someone's going to match me, did anybody match me? No? Okay, all right, slowly. Tim, we got eight minutes or something?

[Someone matched Geshela with his donation] Seriously? Hmm, okay, please live a long life, thank you. Okay good, all right, we got that done.

[1:44] 

All right, here we go. We're going to start with a picture of a blue book you guys, right? Wow, you're so cool. All right.

This is a book that I wrote during my three-year retreat. I wrote several books during retreat, and I like this one. I think it's a nice book. And it's a commentary to the Yoga Sutra, okay? But it's a nice story, an adventure story about a young lady, many years ago, many centuries ago, okay? Yeah, Kadrin, no, Friday. Basang.

By the way, my teacher's name when he was born was Basang. And Basang means Venus, the planet Venus. And it also means Friday. So, that's the same in English, like Saturday is the day of Saturn, for example. So, his name was ... If you don't know what to call your kid, you name them Friday, if they're born on Friday, okay? Then later you send them to the monastery and they get a proper name. So, his name was Basang. I used that name for the lady in this book, for the star in the book, okay?

I picked the best parts of the Yoga Sutra and I put them in there. I like what the Yoga Sutra says about the next perfection. We finished the perfection of giving. Now we're studying the perfection of ethical life, how to live an ethical life. Mainly, how to keep the ten vows, ten commitments, not to hurt people. But then later, if you want to be advanced, you can do Bodhisattva vows and then you can do Diamond Way vows.

By the way, people ask me, what's going to happen after empowerment in October? So, we're working really hard on the empowerment. It's really sexy, I have to say. Don't tell Buddha. But, I finished 1042 sections and it's very, very beautiful and I'm working on it every day as hard as I can. And I think I can finish in one or two more days. Then Tim will start to translate it into different languages. My idea is to share it with the students before the empowerment and teach it to the students before the empowerment. So, if we do a five-day empowerment, the first two days I would like to explain what's going to happen. All the empowerments I ever went to, I didn't know what was going on, at all. And then suddenly they say, okay, we're finished. And I'm like, what? I don't know what just happened. It's all in a foreign language. I don't know what's going on. I always said in the monastery, when I have my own students, I will make sure they know what's going on. So, I'll teach you about the empowerment first and then we'll do the empowerment.

But after that I would like to do some deep dive into your vows. You know, the vows you have to keep. My idea is you take the empowerment, then it allows me to teach you the vows. And my idea is if you don't like the vows, you can quit. You can, what do you call it? Quit the job. You know, that was a fun empowerment, but I don't want to keep those vows. In my opinion, you should have the right to read the contract before you sign it.

So, I will give you empowerment if you like, and I will teach you the vows in detail, in good detail. And then, then you can decide whether to follow this path or not follow this path. And either way, I still love you and I will still help you and I will still be your teacher. Okay? I don't care. Okay? Mazal? Alright. Okay.

So anyway, about vows, about making a promise or making a commitment, I think it's important to know all the details of the vow. And I love the part in the Yoga Sutra. It says, ,BRAG MA BYA RGYAS PA RI DGRA BHA'I YIN MA, ,JAG TU DE ZHIG RGA LA SA MA YANG NA PA'I PHYIN NA, ,SAL BA DPA'O MA MA HA'O RAG TUM, 

This means, I'll say it in English. These forms of self-control are mighty codes of conduct meant for people at every stage of their personal development. The vows, the ten, especially the ten commitments of Buddhists, they go beyond differences in race or social status. Doesn't matter what country you're born in, doesn't matter you're rich or you're poor, your color, your language, your family background, doesn't matter. They are the wisdom which has no borders in this world. You don't have to go to customs to get these vows. Okay?

They go beyond what is modern or old. They are timeless. They are important 2,000 years ago and they are important today and they did not change. They don't have to change. They are beautiful things. They go beyond creeds and convictions. That's very interesting.

I grew up Christian and I was happy, really happy. I had a beautiful church and I had a beautiful experience. A lot of people say they had a bad experience or something. I met the most amazing priests and we had the most amazing teachings and we had the most amazing church. It's the morality, the idea about not hurting other people, it's exactly the same. It's not different. Every country, every religion that I know about, they all teach you to be nice to other people, help other people, don't lie, don't cheat them, don't steal other people's partner. Things like that. These are very beautiful and they help everybody.

I wanted to say my thing about the vows, about morality, about the second perfection of the six perfections. For many years when I was growing up, it felt like don't do this, don't do this, don't do this. Everything is don't do this, don't do this, and it feels uncomfortable. My friends know, I don't like to be told, don't do this by anybody. I'm like, as soon as you tell me don't do this, I will do it. Because I just don't like people telling me what to do. It felt uncomfortable for me, all these vows, don't do this, don't do that, don't do that. Something happened in my life, I think it was DCI actually. 

You cannot go in DCI to East Pakistan and then go to Mexico and then go to Israel and then go to Russia or Ukraine, and then you can't go telling people don't do this, don't do that. Nobody likes it. 

At some point in my life I realized that I can keep the morality better if you tell me something positive. Don't tell me don't do something. Don't tell me, mom, don't eat the cake. Tell me to eat the donut. Then I don't have to eat the cake. Tell me something positive, something I can do which is joyful. I'd like to teach it that way, the second perfection. I don't like to tell people no killing, no killing. I mean, who's going to kill anybody anyway? I like to say help poor people, feed poor people, help sick people, go to visit cancer. Do something happy and positive to help other people.

What's the second one? Don't steal. I've got to walk around, can I take this cookie or not? How many cookies we got for all the students? I don't like to think like that. I like it if you say get a lot of cookies and give everybody cookies. I like that one. I like something positive.

I think these vows, the more you study them, the ten commitments, the ten Buddhist commitments, you can call them Buddhist, doesn't matter. SAR BA'O MA MAHAVIRATAM. Say, SAR BA BA'O MA MAHAVIRATAM, these are for the everybody. Everybody will have fun.

My belief as an old man, if you keep these commitments and you protect life and you share what you have and you respect other people's marriage, like that, you will just be really happy. You'll be [hehehe], all the day you're just [happy], and you feel, you just feel glad the whole day. I object if the morality feel like a police. I don't like it. I don't work with the police too good. I don't like people telling me, don't do this, don't do this.

If you're saying, share what you have with other people, protect life, every chance you get, protect life, honor other people's relationship, enjoy it. Then I think the result, how to know if you're following the perfection, the second perfection, you just will feel happy all the time. I guarantee. These are not… Somebody asked a French monk, I won't say his name because I'm jealous of him. Matthew, what's his name? Ricard.He said… There was a TV interview, nobody asked me for a TV interview, and they asked him, how many vows a monk has? 253 vows. The TV person said, oh, you must feel like you live in a jail. You have all these rules. You cannot do so many things. It must feel like a jail. He goes, no, no, you don't understand. I feel like I'm in a big building and I can fly from the window if I have a vow. Every vow is like wings of a bird and I feel like I can fly. I'm like, damn, he's so beautiful.

That's what the vows are for. Something joyful, something happy. If you're keeping them well, they keep you out of trouble, trust me. Everybody thinks, the ten is okay. I'm sorry, nine is okay. That one, I don't like it so much. Many, many people ask me, can I take a lifetime layman's vow? I said, yeah, I can do. Oh, except Geshehla, I like to have some wine for dinner. Then I'm like, so you don't want a lifetime layman's vow? No, I want them, I just don't want the alcohol one. Can I take it without the alcohol one? And I'm like, no. So, I mean, take them and enjoy. They all are beautiful. Even the one you don't like. Even the one you don't like is beautiful. And if you keep it, you will be much happier. It's so easy, it's so much easier not to drink for example. And you know when you're young, you're 18 years old and you're like, oh man, Geshehla, I'd like to have some wine sometimes, something like that. I can smoke some marijuana or something. What's the problem?

From 73 years old, I give you advice. Just let it go. You don't need it. You just don't need it. And you will be much happier without it. Trust me. You will be much happier. These vows are cool. These vows are smart. The more you keep them, the happier. You will be very happy and very free. You feel very free. The more rules, the more freedom. It's strange, right?

But I really, and you just feel happy all day long because you don't hurt anybody. You're not hurting anybody. Cool? They're not for anybody else really. They're to make you happy and they will make you happy. Just trust it. If every religion in history says the same thing, maybe it's a good idea. Okay. All right. Second one. Next picture. Okay.

Morality Has a Lovely Fragrance

This is called a Chihuahua. This is a Mexican dog, I guess. I don't know. When we made our first ACI center in New York City, we didn't have any money. We were in an area called Hell's Kitchen. It's like hell. There's people walking around with guns. It was a very difficult place. A very, very difficult place. Then one lady agreed to live in the center and she said, I will live there if I can keep my dogs. We're like, okay. By the way, that was Lama Palma. If I can keep my dogs, I will keep the center. Then we're like, what's the dog? There's one little dog Chihuahua. I thought this was just a little dog. Probably it's okay. It barked 24 hours a day.

You know Venerable Puntsok? Some people know Puntsok. He works for Nancy Karen. He's a beautiful, he was a beautiful monk from Haiti. He became a monk, and I remember my teacher agreed to make him a monk. But we don't have robes for him. He said, don't worry Geshehla, I know how to use a sewing machine. I'm pretty good with a sewing machine. I'm like, okay. You can sew your robes, but it's going to happen next Wednesday. You have to be ready. So he worked, Tuesday night, he worked all night, and he finished the robes.

We have a momo pot arrangement. Three floors, right? Remember? He did all the work on the bottom floor. He stayed up all night and he finished his robes. Then he put them on very carefully. He walked up the steps, you know like this, looking me in the eye. Pancho Villa. His name is Pancho Villa. This is the revolutionary from Mexico. He's sitting on the steps. When Puntsok go by, he's like, psshhh. He peed on the robes. Then I saw him, and I'm like, and he's like, and I didn't tell, I never told Puntsok. Somebody should tell him. It's been like 30 years now. I didn't tell him because I thought he won't make it to the ceremony. So he just went with a little bit of water on his... and the dog was really bad.

There was another lady. Can I say her name? I don't know. Is it okay? Jing Mei? Amy Krantz. Okay, there was one lady who... I don't know where she is now. She's probably... Is she okay? It's all right to talk about a person. So anyway, so Pancho Villa would be in the center, and one student is a particularly difficult person. I remember... Never mind. But whenever she came in the door, Pancho Villa would go crazy and try to bite her. And it was very strange. And I'm like, Pancho Villa, don't do that. What are you doing? And he's just like go crazy. And then I used to talk it over with everybody and then they say, he senses something wrong. He knows something that we don't know. Dogs are like that. They can... Cats, they are super intelligent beings. A dog can tell if you're a person who doesn't like dogs. Just looking at you. And it's very strange. And I asked her one day, how do you feel about dogs? I hate dogs. I'm like [I see]. And she didn't say anything. She didn't do anything. She didn't hurt him. But when she opened the door, he'd go [growling].

And then I feel like when a person's not keeping the morality, you can smell it. Everybody can smell it. They can be famous. They can be handsome or beautiful. They can be intelligent. They can be powerful person, rich person. But if they're doing something wrong, like they're cheating with somebody's wife or something like that, you can smell it. It's like the dog. We are all like the dog. And we don't know why. If you ask the person, why you don't like this person? I don't know. Something strange, feel about something strange. And there are people, successful people, and I have been one, who can hide their faults very well. They are sophisticated. They're intelligent. They can hide what they're doing very well. They think. But other people can smell it. Other people around them can smell it.

I say, from my old age, keep your morality. Keep your vows. Don't think you can hide something. You cannot. Everybody's like Pancho Villa. Everybody's like that dog. You think nobody knows what you did or what you're doing. But everybody knows. They don't know directly. They don't know on Tuesday at three o'clock you did this thing. They don't know. But they feel something. They always feel something. And when people are truly keeping their vows, people can also smell it.

Say, TSUL KHRIMS KYI PHYI MA, TSUL KHRIMS KYI PHYI MA. The fragrance that comes off the body of a person who's keeping their vows. It's very interesting. It's like a flower. It's like a flower. It's not... I don't think you can put it in a bottle. Or you'd have to keep your morality and then buy a bottle. And there's also a warmth on their hands. I don't know if you noticed. A good monk, in the monastery we have these super duper monks, and you touch their hand, it feels like it's on fire.

My teacher's hand was like that. You touch his hand, it feels... you have to let go because it's too hot. And I think it's something to do with their morality. And they smell nice. It's nice to be close to them. There's a special smell.

Then when the sewer used to overflow at the Mongolian temple, and he wants me to go dig in the sewer up to my knees, he'll say, ,TSUL KHRIMS KYI PHYI MA. The smell of morality is coming out of the toilet. And I'm like, alright. It was a joke. That's how I learned this word.

People can smell what you're doing. It's easier to stop doing it than to hide it. It takes less trouble. It's less trouble to be good than to try to look good. It's much more work to try to look good when you're not being good.

Are you a terrible person? Are you going to go to hell? Of course. No, I mean, no. No, I mean, just clean it up. I mean, you know. There's things in my life I couldn't clean up for five years, ten years, fifteen years. But keep trying. Just keep trying. If you try honestly to clean up your life, you'll succeed. You will succeed. Don't go crazy. Nobody's perfect. If you were perfect, you would not be on this planet. This planet is for the imperfect people. You are born here because of the karma of not being perfect. Okay? Seriously. So don't feel like you're a dirty person or you're impossible. Don't feel like that. Just slowly, slowly fix it. Slowly, slowly fix it.

Myself, if I was going to do something wrong, I would say, wait another five minutes. I'd say, no, I want to do it now. And say, just wait five minutes. How about four minutes? Okay, wait four minutes and then go ahead and do it. I'm like, okay. And you can do this delay. Delay for five minutes. You're mad at somebody. You want to say something. Then hold your mouth for five minutes. See if you can do it. Then tomorrow try for six minutes. It's not going to happen in one day. It doesn't work like that. Okay? Life doesn't work like that. Clean it up slowly. It only took me 72 and a half years, so don't worry. All right? Next picture. When do I have to stop, Tim? 6.30? Okay, good.

Keeping Your Morality Brings You Faster to Seeing Emptiness Directly

I had something cool happen to me this year. I go to the eye doctor every six months or something. It's a good idea. Or every year, I don't care how old you are. Go once a year or something like that in case something's going on. I go every year for years. I like the guy. He's in Flagstaff. His name's Krishoda. He's a wonderful guy. He and his wife are both optometrists.

He checked my eyes and he said, you have cataracts. Cataract is when the skin goes white. The skin color changes to white. Then you can't see so clearly. He said, you're getting cataracts. I said, no, I'm fine. I can read anything. He said, sit down, Michael. All my doctors are friends of mine. We like to joke.

One of them, the kidney doctor, what's her name? Dr. Ang Chen. She told me some bad news about my kidney. Then I was joking. She said, do you meditate? I'm like [smiling], no one ever smiled when they heard this news before. Anyway, he said, in six months you're going to come back and tell me your eyes are not clear because it's coming. I said, yeah, okay, thanks a lot, bye. 

Six months later, exactly. I realized I can't read so well. Then I said, oh my God, he's correct. The first doctor in history who's correct. Just kidding.

I went back and I said, you're right. I have something going on. He checked and he said, well, now you have cataracts. In Arizona, because the sun is so bright, it changes the skin of the eye. The skin of the front of the eye becomes yellow. You don't know because you're like that all the time. Things are getting yellow, but you don't know they're getting yellow. You see what I mean? It's kind of funny. Then finally it gets too thick and you can't see very clearly.

He said, no problem, you can get an operation. I lived with a blind monk who had a bad cataract operation. I'm like, I can use glasses, it's okay. He said, no, no, things have changed. We don't cut you up anymore. We use a laser and it takes 15 minutes. I'm like, you're going to use a laser on the front of my eye? He's like, yeah. I'm like, nah. Then I talked to Jigme, she had it done already. She's like, go ahead Geshe Michael, it's okay. I searched around. I found the best one I could find. It's not in Arizona. It's in California. I met this good doctor, lady. Anyway, I went to her. She said, yeah, you could go a little while, you don't have to do it right away. I said, well, I have to have a kidney transplant. I think I better get all the operations done first. She's like, okay, let's do it.

Then I said, also I have to go to Kyoto for a month. She says, wait a minute, you want me to do one eye and then wait a month and then come back? I'm like, yeah, I have to go. My students will kill me. She said, do you know what it's like to walk around with one new eye and one old eye? You're going to walk funny and you're going to get headaches every day. I said, I don't care, I got to go. They won't do them at the same time in case something, mistake. We did it in early December. The reason I tell you, one reason I tell you is that probably you will have to do it in your life when you get to 70 or something, if you get to 70. It will come. It will probably come.

Then I wanted to say, don't worry about it, just do it. She was a very cool lady, very fun. She'd get you down on the table and she'd tape your head to the table. I'm like, what? She got this super strong tape. She says, I don't want you to move. I'm like, what? Then she gave me some drugs and I was like, this is fun. Khe fun, khe fun? Khe fun. It's similar to ketamine, but it's a drug. They keep the person calm, so they don't move. Then you watch her cut your eye. From the inside, you watch her cut your eye. They put a new lens. They put in a new lens. Bausch and Lomb, if you know, we used their instruments in gemology. They're very great German lens makers. You could watch them put it in. Then you just go home. Everything's fine.

For one month in Kyoto, where was it? Xiamen. Xiamen or something. I was traveling. One eye, brilliant colors. Brilliant, brilliant colors, like I'm 10 years old. The blues are super blue and the reds are super red. The whites are like snow, glistening. I'm like, wow.

Then this eye, everything's yellow. Then I got headaches and all this stuff. I have to be smiling in the class. Then the second eye got done at the end of December. It's incredible. I asked her, can you do preemptive? Can you get it when you're 30 or 40? She said, yeah. Why not? I said, well, how often do I have to change it? She said, you will die before I have to change it.

One reason I'm telling you is that you should know about it. It's pretty new and it works good. It's amazing. It's just amazing. I gave my wife all my glasses. I just gave them all away. You see, I don't use them anymore. It's wonderful. If you have a chance, do it. I would wait till you're 50 or 60.

Why I'm talking about that? They say if you keep your vows, your eyes improve like cataract surgery. You can see emptiness much faster. It's like getting cataract surgery. Keeping those ten little silly things changes your eyes. I compare it to the cataract surgery. You don't know what it feels like after 50 years to see white, to see real white. I was just walking around like a kid. I told my wife, look at that blue. She's like, what? I'm like, God, look at that blue.

If you keep your morality, you can see emptiness much, much easier. It's like having a cataract operation. Also, you can brag about it to your friends, which is one of the main things I do.

If there's a way, if there's a miraculous way to see emptiness easier, if you can do something easy to see emptiness faster, then I'd say go for it.

It's so basic that it sounds dumb. Just keep those ten. Just keep those ten. You can see things that other people cannot see. Okay, got it? It's eye surgery. The ten good deeds are eye surgery. All right, got it?

That's grandpa. That's things you don't know until you're a grandpa. I'm a double grandpa. I got another kid coming on in two weeks, I think. We call a bun in the oven. Bread in the oven. She's in Tucson. I should be there anyway. Okay, next perfection. What is it?

Not Getting Angry

Don't get angry. Yeah, they can say patience. And by the way, patience is many forms.

One is, I don't know, like you have to dig a big hole or something and it doesn't go very fast. You have to translate 1,200 paragraphs of an empowerment text and you should be patient. You should just work quietly, keep going. You should keep going. And that's one kind of patience.

And then Tsongkapa says, in Gibson's other book, he says, this is the highest form of yogi who can be patient. It's the highest. Everyone's always asking me, can I do nirabhama shirshasana, unsupported headstand. That's like the only thing I can’t do. People say, can you do this one? Can you do this one?

And Tsongkapa says, I can do better than that. I can sit with an asshole and not get angry. He's like, those headstands with no arms, that's nothing. But to sit with an irritating person for the whole day, I mean, you gotta be a genius to do that.

So he says the highest retreat is to sit next to an irritating person in the car from my house. It's eight hours to Diamond Mountain. By the way, Rob, you're not irritating. I'm just, I'm talking about it. I'm talking about a possible situation. If you had to sit next to an irritating person all the way for eight hours, and then that would be a difficult thing, right?

And Tsongkapa says, you'd take those, by the way, this is not my yurt, but when I saw it online, it's perfect. It's exactly what my yurt looked like. And it's exactly what the mountains looked like behind it. But, that place was so remote that we're trying to find it nowadays on a map. No, there's nothing there. No humans ever were there. We're trying to visit it, but we don't know quite where it is.

So, you know it feels tough. We did a tough retreat. We did not talk. I talked once. Twice. Three times. Twice was I got angry. One was, there was a very large snake, and I was trying to tell the other person. So, you know, it seems difficult. It was very difficult to spend three years. We didn't have toilet. We didn't have electricity. We didn't have heat. We didn't have air conditioning. We had a small wood fire, but it was difficult. It was very difficult.

And, he says, it's much more difficult to sit next to an irritating person than to do a three-year retreat. Tsongkapa said that. I'm like, you're right. It's very right. To keep your patience with a truly difficult person is harder than to do a long retreat.

By the way, Tim asked me to cover some topics that you could meditate on during your retreat, and I'll give it to you either today or tomorrow morning. Okay? I'll have that ready for you. Maybe today. 6:30, Tim? Okay.

Yeah, so, he says, if you have to choose between a three-year retreat and an irritating person, this one's more difficult. Especially if you're married to them, or they're your partner or something. It's much— No, it's harder. It's more hard. It's more difficult. Okay?

It's more difficult to be patient than to sit in a yurt and meditate all day. Okay? It really is. And by the way, it was one of the most wonderful things in my life to do that retreat. And it was unbelievable.

So, this place here is very important for your life. If you can do a one-week retreat, two-week retreat. I didn't start with three years. You know, there was a time in my life when I was doing four months of retreat a year for a long time. Maybe for ten years or something. So, this, you know, you have to build up to it. It'd be foolish to just go into a three-year retreat. You should do many weekends. Get used to it. And then do three days.Then do four days. Okay? And that's fine. That's how you should do it. Otherwise, you just waste your time. Okay? You cannot go into a one-month retreat without short retreats first. It's a waste of time.

And there's, you want to hear a famous funny story? I told you. The guy is sitting on the road in Tibet, next to the road. The guy is walking by. The guy is meditating. And he says, the guy is walking down the road in Tibet. This is a famous joke in the monastery. The guy is walking down the road in Tibet. There's this other guy sitting by the side of the road in deep meditation. And the guy is looking at him and saying, God, that guy can meditate on the side of a busy road. That's, that guy is amazing, you know.

Then he goes over and he whispers to him, you know, Hey. What? How are you meditating next to the road all day? So busy, cars, everything. Yeah, I'm doing it. What are you meditating about? Patience. I'm meditating on patience. Huh. You look like an asshole. What? And he got angry and jumped on him. Understand?

That's an old monastery joke. Don't tell these bad jokes unless you know the student well. Okay. 

Then there's a famous line here called LANG ROL GYI DRA. Say LANG ROL DRA. LANG ROL DRA. I think it's URD PA RGA. It's a snake. It's called the creature that goes on its palm. The creature that travels on its palm. LANG ROL LAG means palm of the hand. Nickname for a snake, poetic name for a snake is hand traveler? Palm traveler. Because they travel on their stomach, you know. And then the DRA is Garuda. DRA KHYUNG, say DRA KHYUNG It's a Garuda bird, like a mystical bird. Like a phoenix, similar to a phoenix. And in the traditional stories, the eagle, the Garuda will eat the snake. Okay?

And I was in three retreat, I saw many strange things. We were in a very wild place. No human ever lived there. And there were animals there you won't believe. I could tell you, I wrote a book about it. But I never published it. Because halfway through the retreat the animals start talking to each other. And I wrote down the story and then I never published it. But I will someday, okay? I just need to not go to board meetings all the time.

Anyway, we saw an eagle come down and grab a rattlesnake. These are big rattlesnakes. And flew off and ate it in the sky. We were watching it. These are highly poisonous snakes. And they just grab them and go fly off. And it was amazing. It was just amazing.

And then there was a people south of California near Baja, now Jalisco, right? In Jalisco, near Guadalajara, what do you call that? Vallarta? And there used to be a tribe of people there. And they have a shaman, like Huizhou, a magic guy. And he got a message from God. And the message is, you people have to leave this place immediately. The whole population has to leave immediately. The whole race of people have to leave immediately. And go walk to the east. Just walk to the east. And there's something waiting for you.

And then they're like, whoa, what are we supposed to do?

Keep walking until you see an eagle eating a snake in the sky, and then stop and build a city.

So they walked halfway across Mexico, more than halfway. And they saw the eagle eating the snake and they built Mexico City at a very terrible place. There were nine lakes or seven lakes? I don't know. It used to be too many lakes. Volcanoes. Where's that place? Where? What's that place, all the volcanoes? Anyway, it's dangerous. Lots of earthquakes. And lots of weird stuff going on. But they saw the eagle, they decide.

Why are you talking about the eagle, Geshehla?

They say anger is like a snake. And they say the patience of a strong person is like the eagle, like the Garuda. And it can destroy the snake. They can eat the snake. So there's a skill of riding your anger. There's a skill of, you don't fight your anger. You jump on the tiger and you ride it. And that's a very beautiful skill. And the way to do it is the pot on the stove.

You want to ride a tiger? You want to eat the snake? Pick up the poison snake? Then you got to understand the pot on the stove. That's all.

Geshehla, can you explain it? No. That's up to you. Ask Gibson or Rob. Right? Okay.

But you can use anger. You can ride on the tiger and you can fight it that way. And it's very beautiful. And it's in this one.

I used to recently, I was... What do you call? A couple of years ago, someone came to me and said, we make films for Netflix and we want to make a movie about you. I'm like, oh well. Okay. And so they're almost finished. Halfway through the movie, I changed the movie. I said, I want to teach about death. I want people to learn how to die. I don't want them to see how famous is Geshe Michael. I want to make a movie about Geshe Michael dying and teach people how to die. And so we changed it. We changed the movie. And it's beautiful. It's almost finished.

Then I got another letter from, an email from HBO. This is like very famous. They say, we want to make a movie about how terrible you acted at Diamond Mountain. And I'm like, what? I wasn't even here. I was in Argentina. And something bad happened here. We had a problem with a student. One student passed away. And it was in all the newspapers and all the thing. So, that movie also coming out. I think they're competing. One movie about how bad I am. One movie about how great I am. I like the first one.

Joyful Effort

About what I would meditate about, and I have it here. It's the SS 12.1. 

This is right after I saw emptiness. I think I was 22 or 23, something like that. And my teacher never take a break. Never. And one day he said, let's take a break. And I'm like, are you feel okay? And he's like, let's go to a park. Let's take all the students to a park. And I'm like, why? And he says, I want to play baseball.

He saw baseball on the TV and he said he wants to play baseball. So, we had a wonderful time. We went to a park in Lakewood. If you know Lakewood. Where you there? And we divided into two teams, vegetarian and non-vegetarian. At that time I was vegetarian, my teacher was not vegetarian. And so we said, we challenged the meat eaters. We will show you vegetarians are stronger. And we had a very cool baseball game. And he was the umpire. He was the judge. And we had a big fight and the vegetarians won. Okay?

And so we said, see, you can be stronger with vegetarians.

So anyway, that was right after I saw emptiness. And this is a joyful effort, right? This is the fourth perfection. It's the next one. And if I show it to you, it's this picture. If I show you what it feels like, it's this picture. You just feel so happy that you beat the meat eaters. I mean it’s like wow, you know? Cool. So there's six perfections, right? How do you go like that, right? Yeah. Chinese go like that. Americans go...

So you got the last two hang together, deep meditation and wisdom. Shamatha and Vipashyana basically. Deep meditation and then understanding emptiness. Five and six obviously go together. You need the platform. You need the base, foundation of deep meditation. Then you can meditate on emptiness. And we're going to cover it later.

Then you have the first three perfections, we just finished them, right? What are they, number one? 

Giving. Charities for corporations. Giving, then…

Yeah, ethical life and patience. Grab the anger, eat it up. Okay?

So there's three. Those three hang together. These two hang together. And there's one between them. And it's called TSUNDRU. In Sanskrit it's virya. Which virtue comes from, strength, strong. But it means have a good time doing good stuff. Have a good time.

Don't do it like this [grumpy]. What are you doing? Oh, I'm keeping my morality. It's so boring. I wish I could have some fun.

By the way, morality should be super fun. If it's not fun, you're doing it wrong. Trust me.

So anyway, they say the first three perfections go together. And the last two perfections go together. But working hard with joy, joy is in between. And it goes both ways. It supports both. Number four supports meditation and emptiness. And number four supports giving, ethical life and patience.

Now, my suggestion for your retreat, four-day retreat, go through the six perfections. Meditate on the six perfections. Use the book. Sit with the book, Gibson's Song of My Spiritual Life. And go through the book. Follow the book during your meditation. Read a little bit of the book. If it's me, I'll divide the six perfections. I'll divide how many sessions you have. And divide it before you start. I'm going to meditate about giving for the first two sessions. Then the next three sessions I'm going to work on ethics.

My request, work through the six perfections during your meditations, in your retreat. But the koan. What's koan? It's a riddle. It's a Japanese Buddhist thing. They give you a riddle like, I don't know, what's the largest pencil in the world?

Pennsylvania.

You're from Pennsylvania. You didn't even know that?

No, I mean, koan means, in Japanese Buddhism, your teacher will give you a riddle. They'll say, okay, think about this for four days, right? There's a joke in the monastery. If you want to ruin someone's retreat, tell them not to think about the pencil joke. And they will think about it a whole day. 

Anyway, I want you to go through the six perfections. Half the time is for the first three. Half the time is for the second two. But the koan, where you will find wisdom, where you will change your life, is every day, all day, I want you to ask, what is joyful effort? How can I do joyful effort? How can I learn joyful effort in this retreat?

In these four days, Geshehla gave me homework. What? What the hell is joyful effort? And how can you use it with these three and these two? Like that?

Come up with some application of joyful effort and try to feel joyful effort.

Joyful effort is like hehehe [grinning], Sunam is raising money! I can get my money! Yay! You know, like that. And you feel excited all day. You feel happy. You feel just super happy all day to do cool stuff. Cool stuff. Do good things for people.

And I want you to try to feel it. So what you can do is meditate about nice things you might do when you get home, after retreat, nice things you can do. Make a list. You don't have to do all of them, okay? There'll be a hundred, you'll do three of them. That's okay.

Make a list of nice things you can do for people. Keep a journal. Make a list of some sweet things you can do for other people. But get into it. Try to feel that excitement about these plans.

90% of plans don't happen. It's okay, don't worry about it. No, don't worry about it. 10% is worth it. If you do 10% of it, it's worth it. Make some cool plans for your life.

What we teach in Innovation Retreat, Stanley's group, I used retreat for my whole corporate career. 19 years in the diamond business, I used retreat constantly for new ideas. I believe that's why we became number one in the world. I believe that's ... We started with nothing. We started with a $50,000 loan. At the end, we were the largest jewelry company in the world. I say it's because of retreat. It's because I learned how to do retreat.

Work hard in retreat. Don't sit there and look at the calendar. Like, how many more days I got before I can get out of here? It's not like a jail, okay?

You're so lucky to have the time. Someone feeding you. Someone taking care of you. Someone built you a cabin. Let's give a hand to all the people who built that cabin. Stand up.

By the way, you know the deal. The deal was you build your own cabin, you pay for your own cabin, and we'll pay for the food. We'll figure out the food. The food was a million and a half dollars. Singapore was one of the greatest helps. We should give them a hand.

The deal was if you build a cabin, you have to give it away at the end. You have to give it to Diamond Mountain for free. They all did that. When you sit in those cabins, they died to make those cabins. The last cabin was approved the day before we started retreat. I think the last two or three cabins. We were lucky because we had a fat guy for the inspector. The last cabin was the one up on the hill. He's like [breathing heavily], and then he looked up there. We said, we got one more. He says, it looks okay. Okay? So enjoy the cabins. They have a good karma in them. Those people gave them. They were not rich people. They did the work themselves. It's a blessing to be in the cabins.

Your assignment is to find joyful effort. Find joyful effort. Find it. Find the feeling. That's the assignment. If you don't walk out with a smile, you failed the test.

What? Why? If you speak so fast, I don't understand at all. Please, maybe there will be an interpreter. That would be better. Please.

[student’s interpreter: So, she wanted to take the moment and to have this opportunity when we have lots of online and offline participants. About the idea she got like three months ago when she was planting the trees with the other volunteers. So, her idea is to write a book about Diamond Mountain and each of us can share their story, how they get to Diamond Mountain. First of all start with the people who took part, who had a three-year retreat. Because there are a lot of questions that we would like to have answers to. Geshela, Venerable Gyeltse, Connie, JB, Jigme, everyone. Because we have so many questions between what was in the beginning and now. It’s gonna be for the future generations and all the money they make from selling this book will be given to Diamond Mountain. So there will be an unlimited source of money for Diamond Mountain.]

Okay, we'll try.

[student’s translator: So, it's for you to understand it. We need you, we need your experience and we need to please share with us that. We ask you for that.]

Okay, thank you. 

[1:07]

Again, I'm sorry. I didn't have time for a shower. We had board meetings all night. B-O-R-E-D meetings. You want the good news or the bad news? Wait, good news, raise your hand. Bad news, raise your hand. Okay, I'll split it. You ready? Go, Sunam’s...

So I'll give another two and a half if somebody matched me for two and a half. Matched Utpala. Okay. You got to change the number. You got to change the number. It's 108, 110 if I may point out. Yeah, they'll get it straight by tomorrow. Anyway, congratulations to everybody. Thank you. Sunam said the next fundraiser is for a boat. Just kidding. All right. You ready you guys? Upside down. No, what?

Oh, the bad news was we need five more. No, but we got it. We got it. We're finished. Finished. I won't bother you anymore. Until next time. Okay? Congratulations for that. My dad used to say, Sunam, don't spend it all in one place. You ready? You ready with the slide? I like it.

Misunderstanding Comes From Seeds

So I got three emails after I sent this to them, and they all said it's upside down. And I said, no, I want it upside down. The reason is, misunderstanding the world, thinking that the world is not coming from you. You meet an irritating person at Diamond Mountain. By the way, all irritating people are shipped to Diamond Mountain. Just so you know. So, this is where you can meet them. All right? Especially on a retreat.

Misunderstanding, the devil's thing is to misunderstand things. The devil believes that irritating people come from their own side, right? And the devil tries to negotiate with them, or the devil tries to fight with them, or the devil goes home. The devil tries to be a Bodhisattva and smiles, and goes home and hates them all night. And you know, that's the devil's system, okay? And it means the devil's main quality is that the devil doesn't understand people. And that's the first link of the Wheel of Life. They call it misunderstanding. And it's just that.

It's not some ancient Buddhist philosophy thing. It's not some wheel that Buddha designed 2,000 years ago. It's not that. It's just simple. You don't understand the people who irritate you. It's like what you used to tell your parents. You just don't understand me. Okay? Right?

So, misunderstanding is ... the devil misunderstands everything, especially people who irritate the devil. The devil sees everything upside down. Okay? If the devil went to the lecture by Gibson and Rob, he would think it was all coming from his own side or something. He would think the lecture about misunderstanding was coming from his own side. You see what I mean? From its own side. He would think that.

Even if the devil went to the pot-on-the-stove class, the devil would think that that class was coming from that class, and not from them. Okay? They would even misunderstand understanding. Got it?

So, I put the picture upside down and many people tried to correct me. But I want you to remember the picture upside down, because misunderstanding also has dependence. Right? There are seeds in your mind that make you misunderstand. Okay? Even the devil is following the rules. 

When the devil doesn't understand things, the devil is following the rules. Okay?

Even the devil has to follow the rules that he comes from seeds in your mind. Okay? Misunderstanding the seeds in your mind has to come from seeds in your mind. Okay? All right? 

What? Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay. Misunderstanding, yeah. I'm saying short way. There's all mantras. There's a Nyingpo Ngak, Essence Mantra. There's the Dugyong Ngak, Everyday Mantra. There's the Ngak Gyepa. There's like five mantras for every mantra. This is the short one. Okay?

He's not coming from something. He's obeying the rules of dependence. Okay? Even the devil has to obey the rules of dependence. Okay? He's also coming from your seeds. He can say, he can say correctly, I'm correct. The devil can say correctly, I'm correct. I follow the rules.

Why? I come from seeds. So, I don't have any fight with you. Okay?

It's very cute. It's a very cute text if you understand it.

The devil says to the angel, I don't have any fight with you. Because I agree with you. I believe things come from seeds. And I'm also coming from seeds. What's the problem? Okay? I follow the rules. Got it?

He does come from seeds. But we want to use the seeds to ... we want to kill his seeds. Which is the only way to stop the devil. That's the only way. You have to kill his seeds. After the seeds open, it's too late. Things are too late. Okay, next picture.

I was trying to find a king who looks mean. It's pretty good, right? Like a king who looks kind of unfriendly. To me, he looks unfriendly. I don't know.

The devil says, look, I'm the king inside of the heart of every living being. I own the property of the heart of every person. I'm there and I'm the king. I live there. I'm the king of the three poisons. I direct people to the ten bad deeds. I'm like the king of the world. In fact, when I'm having a good day, people will commit the five immediate bad deeds.

A hundred dollars for any one of those. The five immediate bad deeds.

The devil said, I'm the king. I live in the heart of every person. I'm the boss of the heart of every person. I make them to go to the ten bad deeds. And I also, those people who are very talented, I teach them the five immediate deeds. One at a time, okay?

[Mike Hoffman: Killing your mother.]

Killing your mother. Yay. Oops. I hope it doesn't go on the ... Somebody's going to record that, you know. Yay.

[Janice Sanders: Causing a schism amongst the Sangha.]

Yeah, splitting up the spiritual community. That's two. It's money flowing around. Rob, let's go, let's go.

[student: Killing your father, as well.]

Killing your father. Two more.

[Daniel: Drawing blood from a Buddha. Attempting to hurt a Buddha, because you can't really hurt him.]

Give me a little bit more information. Is it wrong if the blood goes ... Like, I go get my blood drawn regularly.

[Daniel: With a negative intent.]

Good. Okay, yeah, yeah. That's four. If you're a nurse, and you check the Buddha’s blood, it's okay. One more.

[student: I'm sorry. My first answer, ever.]

Yay. But we don't know if it's correct.

[student: I hope so. Please, please do it correctly. Divide Sangha? No?]

That's okay.

[student: Cheat on your husband? No?]

No, that one's okay. One more, one more. One more try.

[student: Kill a saint person, like Arya?]

I don't know. Is it?

[student: Arhat? Is it? I don't know. It's okay, it's okay. Give it to someone else.]

Okay, $100. You got it, you got it, you got it.

Okay, anyway, he does the whole thing, right? He does the whole thing. Next picture.

Falling Off the Cliffs of the 2 Extremes

This is falling off the cliff, and it relates to, first of all, to Middle Way, okay? So, we study Middle Way. We study Madhyamaka. We study the Middle Way. Normally, they would say that it's the Middle Way between thinking that things exist and thinking that things don't exist. So, in Buddhism, the Highest School is the Middle Way school, and it says that when you live your life, it's like you're driving down the street. I like to think of it on a highway, and I like to think of it like on the Verrazano Bridge. You know the Verrazano Bridge? It's a very high bridge between, is it Staten Island? Staten Island is 20 miles. So, I broke on the top of the bridge at midnight one time, and that was the car that I fixed that didn't fix so good, and you have two choices. You can fall off the right side, or you can fall off the left side, and it's very frightening. The bridge is very frightening. To get out on the bridge in the middle of the night is very frightening. And it was cold, it was winter, and I was trying to fix the Volkswagen.

So, if you fall off one side, it says things don't exist. Somebody told you Buddhism means that things are not the way you think they are. So, what would be an example of that side?

The side of falling off the middle way because you think things do exist. Stanley?

Yeah, you can buy the pen from the store. If you think you can get a pen from the store, you fell off one side of the bridge. Then what's the opposite side?

[Stanley: Because it's empty, there's no pen at all in the world.]

Good, okay, fine, nice. Notice I didn't offer you any money. Yeah, you can fall off one side if you say the pen comes from the store. But you fall off the other side if you say if the pen doesn't come from the store, then there's no pens. The pens don't exist. And you have seen…

By the way, what's the percentage of people who fall off the first side and what's the percentage of people who fall off the second side?

99.999% Yeah, 99.999% people fall off the store side. And then there's a small group of Buddhists, strange Buddhists in history who say there's no pen at all. They say nothing exists at all.

It's much more common to fall off the bridge by saying that this pen comes from the store.

How do you stay in the middle of the bridge?

Yeah, the pen comes from me. You can go like that, the pen comes from me. Okay, good.

So that's normally the two cliffs, okay? We say two cliffs, you fall off this cliff or you fall off this cliff.  And that's the picture here. But in this verse, which is 396, we're on verse number 396. After 11, 15 years? Yeah, we've been going for 15 years on this thing. And we are just two-thirds through, okay? So you've got to do it for another, how long? Seven years, something like that. It's good luck. Alright.

Here's his version of falling off, okay?

That people do their practice, they think about emptiness this way, is because of my blessing. Who's talking? That people think the pen comes from the store is my blessing. You know, the Pope goes like this, you know, and then the devil's going like, this is my blessing to you, you know, everything comes from the store.

Then he accuses the, he accuses the wisdom, the angel, and he says, if we accept your idea that it's not true that everything's coming from you, or it's not true that things exist, if we accept your idea, then we fell off the other cliff. He said, the devil said to the angel, if we accept your idea, then we don't believe anything exists, okay?

If you say you cannot get a pen from a store, then you're saying there's no pens. Then you fell off the cliff. Who? The angel. The devil's accusing the angel. If you say I cannot get a pen at the store by paying money, then you fell off the other side of the cliff, and you believe there's no pens at all. If I cannot get a pen in the store, then there's no pens at all. Then you fell off the cliff. Okay, got it? You alright? It's very quiet. I wish it was that quiet when we meditate, Joe. We ask questions during Transcendent Class, and it gets really quiet. And then we meditate, and everyone's talking.

He accuses her of falling off a cliff. He says to her, if you can't get a pen from the store, then there's no pen. He tells her that. Next picture.

This is a special kind of mouse called a lemming. Say lemming. I don't know if they exist in Ireland or something like that. And sometimes they go crazy. The whole population goes crazy, and they run off a cliff, and they all die. Like 10,000, 20,000. They don't know why. Nobody figured it out. But it's called the lemmings. They look like that, and they all turn around and they all jump off a cliff. Like thousands of them at the same time. And they all die.

It means the devil says the majority of people don't believe that the pen is coming from them. The majority of people don't believe that the pen is coming from them. Only a tiny, tiny percent of the people believe that they are making the pen. Okay?

If you took a vote today in the world, if you took a vote, how many people vote the pen is coming from the store? You know, 99,999 will raise their hand. And then only small, small percent of people at Diamond Mountain, they will say, no, no, the pen doesn't come from the store. Okay? 

Then the devil says, I think we should go with the majority. You know, normally if 99% people believe something, it's probably they are right. Probably they are correct.

And I think in this case you have to understand that the number of people who really believe that the pen is coming from them, even intellectually believe–who saw the seeds open, I'm not talking about, that's one in many millions. But who believes it, that things are coming from seeds, that's very, very rare. Like 0.0001%. Okay? Big majority. If you took a vote, the lemmings would win. Okay? The people jumping off the cliff will win.

So the devil says, look, let's just look at the majority of people in the world. Who do they support? 

Me. They believe my position. The pen comes from the store. Therefore, the biggest mistake you can make is to share your pens. Because you'll have to go back to the store. Or you'll have to make more money. You see what I mean? That's his position. The whole world believes that when they don't have enough pens, they should go get some pens. Go to the store and get some pens. 

That means they need money. That means they need to compete with other people. That means they cannot support other people. They cannot help other people to succeed. Okay?

And I mentioned, we had a case this last week. There's two coffee shops in our town. Okay? Like, we opened a small one. And then immediately somebody else opened one. Me and Stanley, you know the story. Me and Stanley are driving by this place and they're opening a new store. He's driving, right? I was sitting and I'm watching and I said, look, somebody's opening something.  What's the sign say? And he said, Stanley says, it says Rimrock Coffee Company. And then I was like, hmm? And I got a little bit upset. It's my student, so I'm trying to be cool in the car.

Then he said, Geshehla, looks like it bothers you a little bit. And I'm like, yeah, it bothers me a little bit. Then I said, turn around. And he's like, we turned around on the main street. It's dangerous. I'm like, turn around. He's like, what? And we turned around and I got a thousand dollars ready. And I went to the door and the lady wasn't there. We left it unknown and I freaking think we left the money there. Turns out that her husband got the money. And it seems like he didn't tell her. Because recently I met her and she asked me for a loan.

She said, we want to make our coffee shop look like yours. This happens to me in many things. And we want everyone to think it's yours. And I'm like, oh, okay. And she said, but we need money. We need some money. And I'm like, how much do you need? She says 35,000. I'm like, oh. Then I went home, I talked to my wife and we decided to try. And we loaned her. We gave her the loan. I don't know if I'm going to get it back or not. But we gave her the money.

Why am I talking about that? It was really hard after many years of Buddhism to... I went to the place, my wife and I went together. We talked to her personally. And she's working by herself. She's fixing the whole place by herself. Why? The husband disappeared. The two kids are still there. The husband disappeared, probably with my thousand dollars he went to Mexico or something. So anyway, it seems like even for me, after many years of study, it was difficult to do it. It was difficult to offer that to her.

So I think the majority opinion of the many lemmings, that you should protect your coffee shop and you should fight with her and you should tell everybody I love that coffee shop. You know? They've got all my people there in the coffee cups. Roaches. Right? You just little things you say. Yeah, I like that place. It's just, if you can get a chair. Because usually the roaches are sitting in the chair. That's the old coffee shop by the way. That's the one where they put the bar. Red Bear. The bar and the hamburgers and pizza. The one you first come into Rimrock. That used to be a coffee shop. Me and Jigme used to sit there and fight the roaches and try to catalog the Kangyur. Right? We never finished. The roaches won. Okay?

So anyway, even after many years it's very difficult. It was very difficult to understand that if we help our competitor it will help us. You see what I mean? Because you grew up in a world where the majority of people don't believe them. It's so difficult when you grow up in a world where 99.9% of the people say, Geshehla, you are crazy. She's stealing our design of our patio. Did you know that? She says, look, I made the patio just like yours. I'm like, yeah, that seems to be happening. 

Anyway, to be happy and to support a person who's doing that means you understand the Middle Way. Okay? That means you understand the Middle Way. Not to go with the lemmings.

The lemmings will say you are foolish if you help your competitor. You're just stupid. Got it? And even for me it's difficult. I'm saying it's difficult.

I think you just have to try it. You have to try it. Practically speaking you can do small tests of this philosophy. If she asks for $35,000 give her $35. Dollars. Start small and see how it goes. Got it? Start small. See if things improve. In my experience that's the way to do it. You can't give $35,000 the first day. You won't be able to do it. Because the whole world is going the other way. There's too many people doing the opposite. We can't compete with them. Okay?

Don't forget, what's it called, that creature? Lemming. It's like lemon but lemming. Next picture.

The Devil is Natural, the Angel is Artificial

I've been teaching the translators for 10 years. We had our 10th anniversary celebration. When, Haso, a couple weeks ago? Oh, on the horse , year, February 17th, right? 16th. We had our 10th year anniversary of the translators. 12 people, men and women, 10 years ago we started to translate together and I started to teach them how to translate. And it was painful, I have to say. They were really bad for a long time. Then something happened after 10 years, about two weeks ago. Now everyone suddenly got brilliant and Gibson's giving lectures and it's kind of strange. For me it's kind of strange. All the translators are flowering and they are growing like crazy. So, yeah.

Yeah, there's a before and after. Below everybody, nobody has white hair and most people have hair. Then 10 years later is the above picture. Okay? Notice my hair is most grey.

Why am I talking about that? I started a special class for them. We divided into 12 translators because we want to cover all of the great schools of Buddhism. Basically there are 12 great schools in the last 2,500 years. Each translator has a different responsibility for a different school because each school uses a different language. There are 12 different dialects. You can understand Abhidharma language and not understand logic language, for example.

But there's one language I didn't teach them yet. I think only Geshe's learn all the languages because we spend average 5 years on each language. Something like that. Sometimes we study two in one time.

But I was thinking there's one more language that I would like to teach people which is Diamond Way language, which is unique and very difficult. So I started a special class just the translators and they are studying the Diamond Way language. How to read Diamond Way text. I'm also trying to teach them to read script, handwriting, and teach them to read handwritten manuscripts.

So they are working with four kinds of manuscripts. They are working with carvings and typewriter printings and semi-cursive, half cursive, half handwriting and then full handwriting. This is full handwriting.

This is the book, you guys who are in the translator class, Diamond Way translators, this is the book you are studying. So far we didn't get to there. We didn't get to the handwriting yet. That's next. We are starting maybe in a week or two. We will start then. They are doing very well. They are doing very very well.

I thought that this whole system of writing the wisdom down, whether you handwrite it, or you print it, or you type it, or you carve it, no matter how you do it, it's all artificial. You see? Buddhism, philosophy, teaching people in groups like this, that's artificial. It's not normal. It's not human nature. It's not human nature to take a hundred people, go in a room and tell them the pen is coming from them. It's not normal. It's something new in the world. You can say it's artificial. You can say it's artificial. This whole system of writing down wisdom, teaching it in classes, reciting it, memorizing, debating, teacher gets up in the class and teaches people, this is all artificial. This is not human nature. This is not normal for humans. To have classes like this is not human nature.

Human nature is fight for yourself and your family, or your country. Fight for yourself, fight for your family, fight for your country. This is human nature. This is the majority rule. If we had a vote in history, the people who write things down will lose. The people who say philosophy should be preserved, philosophy should be taught, wisdom should be taught from generation to generation, these are a tiny, tiny percentage of human beings, and it's artificial intelligence. It is. Buddhism itself is a very artificial intelligence. It's not normal, and it's not natural.

Natural is if you find a deer body in the forest, eat it with your teeth, and fight any other caveman who comes, and try to kill them. That's human nature. You see? This idea that, no, no, you should share the deer meat with the other caveman, this idea is very strange, and it's very new, and it's very artificial. The natural human tendency, the human habit, is to fight for your food against other people, and fight for your family's food, and kill the other people who try to take your food. This is human nature. This is history. This is natural. This has been going on for all… Since the first people came to this world, this is natural, to fight for your family, fight for your country, fight for yourself, and don't ever loan money to the other coffee shop. Okay? Really, really. Okay? This is human nature. No, this is normal. This is 99 point, this is the lemmings of the whole history, is to fight for what? Fight for yourself, and fight for your family, and fight for your country, and this has been going on for a long time.

This thing, it even looks artificial, right? This is a small piece of paper, and a small pen writing little strange designs on a paper, and this is a new thing. This is artificial. This is completely unnatural. Okay?

What's natural? Kill the other cavemen who found the same deer. Kill them before they kill you. Eat the deer before them. Eat it fast. That's natural.

What's artificial? Call them to come and share with you. Call the other cavemen, hey, I found a deer, it's dead, let's have dinner together. This is not natural. This is artificial intelligence. Okay? That's not natural to people.

And the demon, the devil, he's arguing that in this verse. Okay? Got it?

The devil's like very… By the way, our devil, I think we can be proud. Some of those devils in other religions, they're just kind of funny, or stupid, or silly. Our devil is sophisticated. Our devil knows, he knows philosophy. He knows how to argue.

He's like, Miss Angel. Yes? Let's talk about artificial intelligence. Yeah, okay, okay.

Now, what's the natural way to do things? Oh, you fight over the food that you find, and you kill the other people who try to eat it. Oh, that's the way it's always been, right? Yeah, that's the tradition of our people for generations. Yes, that's natural. We should stick to natural. Natural foods. Okay? 

And then, the devil accuses her, this new system, I should take care of the other coffee shop owner. I should loan my money to the other coffee shop owner so they can compete with me. This is your artificial intelligence. You just made that up. You are something new in the world. I am the nature of life. I am the ancient tradition of all life. You are like a beginner. You are like a new person. You just come for a little time, and you're going to go away, and my system will be here after you're gone. Okay?

The devil is very sophisticated. He's like, you can write this new system. Writing itself is not natural to human beings. It's artificial intelligence. Writing is artificial intelligence. Who thought you could write something down about how to treat deer meat? Who thought you could write down on paper instructions for how to share your deer meat with other cavemen? Who thought of this? It's a new idea.

So the devil says to her, you are not natural. You are some kind of new thing. In English we say flash in the pan. You are a temporary new thing. You are a temporary new fashion. You are ... What's the ... In Guangzhou there's a store. What's the Japanese department store? Not Takeshimaya. The new one with the hip clothes. Scott liked to go there. Uniqlo.

You're the Uniqlo. We're the Takeshimaya. We've been here all this time. We've been running the world our way for a long time. You're just going to come and you're going to go. You're just a fad. The devil accuses her of being a fad.

It's artificial intelligence to believe that by sharing what you have with others you will be more successful. By the way, I don't even like to say it that way. What's a better way to say it?

I think it's not quite correct to say if you make a loan to the other coffee shop, your coffee shop will be more successful. I think it's not enough. Hasso, $500. What? Wait, take your time.

Okay, wait. Let's get the question straight. I think when you say you should make a loan to the other coffee shop so your coffee shop will be more successful, it's a little bit not correct.

[Juan Hasso: Okay. I think it's if you give a loan to the other coffee shop, you help them, and you plant a seed which later will open and bring up a luminous image, based on the kindness you did to them, you will find the success you are wishing for. No?]

Go farther. Go farther.

[Okay, that luminous image is going to project ... Okay.]

I still make it $500.

[Juan Hasso: What's the question then?]

I'll say ... Now we know what's going on. I'll say the question again. If I present our philosophy, our new artificial intelligence, which started 2,500 years ago, if you support your competitor, then your company's coffee shop will succeed. Is that enough? And I'll give $500 for a good answer.]

Okay, Rob. Rob, you got to find another victim. $500 for a better answer. $500 for a better answer. 

[student: I think maybe there is no competitor. The competitor doesn't exist.]

No.

You want to try online? You want to try online? Let's try online. Can we do online? Brian, send the money. I hope so. Hi. Singapore? 

[student: I'm from Vietnam.]

Oh, Vietnam. Okay.

[student: Yeah. It's not enough. We should help them to plant the seed to be successful. So, when you help them successful, then your coffee shop will be successful. Money is not enough. We have to also plant this to help them to be successful. I mean to plant the seed to be successful.]

Okay. I say $500.

[student: Thank you. Thank you Geshela.]

It's not enough to say if I help the other coffee shop I will be more successful. It's not enough to say that. You have to say what? There'll be two successful coffee shops. That's a lot more beautiful. That's a lot more happy. By the way, I went to her new coffee shop. I stood there. I never met her before. I just met her husband who… They got divorced. I asked her, I've been helping you since the first day you opened. She said, I didn't know about it. I think the guy ran away with the money. Anyway. So, she will be successful in her coffee shop. She will learn my example the best way you can do it without teaching. With no teaching. There will be no Buddhist class. She'll just get the money and that will change her behavior slightly. She will start to wonder why another person, competitor, want to help her. Then maybe, probably, she will change. She will change slightly and she will start helping other people. Then we'll have two successful coffee shops in Rimrock, which is two more than were before.

Now, you don't know how bad it was, Peter. You have to go. Me and Anatole used to go to the gas station to get some coffee. We counted the number of beers going out of the gas station one time while we were there for half an hour. How many was it? 140 beers went out of the grocery. This is what sells in our town.

Now, something interesting. I met the lady after that recently. I hope she's going to do okay. It looks okay. She said, something strange is happening in our town. I said, what's going on?

She said, first strange thing is the two coffee shop owners are helping each other. That's strange and it's wonderful. She said, it's really wonderful. And she said, suddenly the income in our town has increased. The Rimrock economy, the average income in ... Did you notice that? No, I mean there's real cars driving around. Like I saw a Tesla and you're like, hmm. Usually it's old Chevrolets from 1960, broken down cars. And the house prices have doubled. The house prices have doubled. So, it's changing. Maybe there's something going on. Maybe artificial intelligence has reached even Rimrock.

People ask me, Geshehla, you live in New York for 19 years. You made the largest jewelry company in the world. Why do you live in Rimrock? So, when I ... I didn't want to bother my wife. She had a marriage. She was married. I fell in love with her 50 years ago. I didn't want to bother her, so I didn't move to Arizona. But then she got divorced. Then I got a pin. She has two houses, one in Flagstaff, one in Cornville. So, I put two pins, one on the map. One is Flagstaff, and one is Cornville. Then I see what's halfway between. I said, I will buy a house there, and I will fish for her. That's called Rimrock. That's why I'm in Rimrock. Just to explain. I can fish both ways. Okay. Okay. It worked.

Speaking of my wife, this is the library at Dunhuang.

Dunhuang is an unusual formation of stone in an ancient river that's mostly dried up in the small town called Dunhuang, which is on the edge of the Gobi Desert, the southeast edge of the Gobi Desert. Basically, if you walk to the west, you will die, because it's just sand. For hundreds and hundreds of miles, it's just sand. At this strange little town, which has a strange ... It's very similar to the rock formation here, but that rock is very soft. It's a composite rock, so it has a lot of sand in it. You can carve it. You can carve the rock.

People started to do meditation there. They built a small retreat center. People carved a cave into the wall, and even the roof will stay up. You don't need any support for the roof. The kind of stone it is, you can carve a cave, and you can stay in the cave, and you can meditate, and you can practice. So people started to do retreat. This is the crossroads of the Silk Road. Silk going from China to Europe, and then gold going from Europe to China.

The Senate of Rome had a vote to stop all import of silk from China, because they were losing, because the women of Rome only wanted to wear Chinese silk, and they lost too much gold. Too much gold was going to China. They passed a law against Chinese silk. You weren't allowed to wear Chinese silk. If you exported knowledge of how to make silk from China, it was capital offense. You would be killed. So, for a long time, the Westerners didn't know that you feed silkworms mulberry tree leaves. There's only one kind of leaf they want to eat. That was top secret. 

They say some queen, local queen hid mulberry tree seeds in her turban, and she got out, and she started to spread the knowledge of how to feed the silkworms. So now we have mulberry trees in Arizona a lot. I have one in my house, just to honor the Chinese silk road. They grow very well in Arizona.

Anyway, this is the silk road. We were at a crossroads. Dunhuang is at a crossroads between East and West. If you go one way, you go to Europe. If you go one way, you go to the capital of China, which is what? Old capital. Tangzhou. Chang'an. Nowadays it's called Xi'an. So, this idea that you don't have to die, this idea that in theory, if you help other people to live, you don't have to die yourself, is a new invention. That's like AI. It's very similar to AI.

It's like how to make silk, how to make porcelain, Chinese porcelain, how to make gunpowder, how to make paper. All of these things were stolen by Europeans from China. Thank you very much. 

This knowledge of things passed down the silk road for thousands of miles, and I think it's 3,000 years or something. The silk road is old. So it's been passing on. Dunhuang is like the center of the silk road. Xi'an is there also.

I think the devil at this point, he's accusing the angel. He says, I represent the wisdom, the timeless wisdom of the world. I represent, the devil said, I represent the way it has always been. People have always competed. People have always fought the other people to get money and to get resources. And, we have a system in my world called death. All beings must follow it. We have a certain law from ancient times that human beings are allowed to walk around for a while and try to look more beautiful than the other human beings. Then they get ugly and they die. This is our system. It's been here forever. This is our tradition. We have to follow the tradition of ancient times. 

People get born. People look handsome, strong. Then we make them ugly and skinny and then they die. This is our system. And you, who are you?

She says, I'm the new way. I'm a new invention. He says, we don't like it.

What's your new invention? We say, if you want to get rich, if you want to have a successful coffee shop or whatever, then help somebody else to do the same thing. Help somebody else to do the same thing. And, we say, that principle is so true that if you follow it all the way to giving other people life, you don't have to die. You can overcome death itself. This is a new system.

At this time in the book, it's very beautiful. It's very, very beautiful. The devil is saying, look, getting old, being born, getting sick, losing your hair, dying, kidney disease, all this stuff... This is the tradition. This is the old way. We have to respect what's always been the tradition of our people. This is our tradition.

You are just the new idea. This idea that you don't have to die, this idea that you have to help your competitors, this is not natural. I'm natural.

Now I have a question for you, $100. You ready? Wake up. It's amazing.

The devil says, my system is natural. This is the way it's always been. People have been born, people grow, fight, compete, get money, build house, die. Give the house to the kids, they sell it in two weeks. This is the house you killed yourself to make for your kids. They don't want to live in Rimrock. They sell it in two weeks. This is the old system. He says this is natural. My way is natural. Your way is artificial intelligence. You are not natural. This whole thing of giving the competitor money, this whole thing of supporting the people who try to compete with you, this is unnatural. You are unnatural. Is he correct? $100. And tell me why. Is the devil's position correct? 

What's the question Geshehla? The devil has a system that's been going on in this world from the beginning. He says this is the way it's always been. This is natural. Your system is artificial. He says that. Is he correct? $100 question.

[student: Because it's coming from my seeds, because I'm planting the seeds to see the devil telling me that's true.]

$100. Yeah. 

You expect the angel to say no, no. That's ... you are not natural. I'm natural. No, no. You are artificial. I'm not artificial. But she says you're right. That's the way it's always been. You're right. You are the tradition of this world. You are what's natural in this world. In this world so far people are born, people compete, people collect things for their kids. They die, the kids sell them. It's been going on since forever.

She doesn't fight him on that. It's very interesting. It's very interesting. She says you are the natural way of this world and I admit that. And I admit I'm artificial. I'm AI. The angel says I admit this is a new way and a strange way in this world but it's the best way. 

I thought it's a very interesting conversation. You are the way it's always been, devil. Your competition thoughts they are natural. People fight over food from the beginning. You are natural but you're wrong. You are natural to this world. You are the way it's always been but it's a bad system. And I say we need a new one. It's very beautiful.

She's the ancient new AI and she says I'm better. My system is better. And Rimrock can have two coffee shops. They can help each other and people be happier. People can go to one at 6 o'clock. I'm not opening at 6 o'clock. And people can go to the other one at 8.30 or something. Okay? That's okay. Got it?

Is she natural in this world? No.

But is she better? Yeah. Okay, got it? It's interesting. Alright.

And I wanted to say it's been a hard month. People keep dying. And we are, you know, we wanted to build cave houses here? Cave retreat cabins. We want to copy Dunhuang. We call Dunhuang West. And we chose the rocks. I chose them many years ago, like 20 years ago. I said we want to build retreat cabins in the cave. We want to build special ones. We'll paint them like Dunhuang. 

So we went to a special company, architecture company called Line in Space. They are cool guys because they know this area since they were children. They know this marble. They know these mountains. They used to come here when they were kids. They used to go and dig the marble. They used to hike in there and dig it and come out with it in the backpack.

So these guys know this area. Three guys. One is Chinese. One was born in the US. He's Chinese. So they build a lot of buildings in China, in Shenzhen and Guangzhou. Beautiful government buildings and things. So we're like wow. These guys are amazing.

They designed the stupas. And they built the stupas. It's an amazing company.So we're like me and Stanley are like innovation retreat. Let's build some cave retreat cabins like Dunhuang. And we can do better than those Dunhuang guys. We have to compete, right?

Then the guy didn't answer his email. We're like getting irritated. We had a meeting. Stanley's like I don't know if we should keep these guys. I'm like I don't know. I don't know. He's a good guy. I don't know why he's not answering. He died. He died. He's young. He's strong. He's handsome. He has a very successful company. He was riding his bicycle and he got killed.

It happens. That's the world that we live in. So me and Stanley had a meeting. Let's not ride them for a few weeks. They're trying to get used to that they lost their best friend. One of the three guys died.

Then I got a text from my lawyer, Bob Brown, if you know him. He's the best church lawyer in Arizona. He teaches church law at the university here. He's been our lawyer for 20 years. He didn't answer his email. I'm like what's going on? Then he wrote me and he said my wife died. I said we just saw her. He said yeah, she got sick two weeks ago. She died yesterday. He said she just got sick two weeks ago and then she died yesterday. He said, Geshehla, good luck. I'm retiring. I give up. It's too much.

What I'm saying is the natural way in a world of competition where you fight for the deer meat, where you fight for the farming, where you fight for the land. The best land in Europe for planting crops is Ukraine. It's the biggest land in Europe. Fight for it. Try to take it. But that's the world of death. That philosophy, that thinking that I should fight and I should take the land from the other people. I should put my food here. That kind of thinking is the devil's way.

Is it traditional? It's traditional.

Is it correct? No. You see?

Death is natural. Death is natural. Getting old, dying is natural. That's in this world. But it's a mistake. There are worlds where they don't live like that. You can say Buddha Paradise and I always wonder what they're doing there. It would be so boring to sit there in meditation all day. Do they have Netflix in Buddha Paradise? I just… Think about it. I don't know about you, when I first heard about Buddha Paradise, I asked my teacher, well, what do they do there? Do they go on dates? No, they just sit on their lotus pedal and think about stuff. I'm like, I'd rather be in Boowie than Buddha Paradise. It's more interesting.

You shouldn't think like that. Buddha Paradise is exciting, cool, happy. It's like Paris and Shenzhen mixed together. So don't think like that.

The new system is different and it's artificial. It is artificial. It's not natural. But there are planets where they already live like that. We are the dumb guys. In the galaxy, we are the dumb guys. This world is still dumb guys and there's better worlds where they figured out their coffee shop thing a long time ago and they live that way and they're happy and they help each other and people don't die.

The competitive way of thinking leads to dying. The cause of death in this world is competition. It's very interesting. The reason people die in this world is they don't want other people to succeed. That's the cause of death.

In America, within how many hours? I think within two hours by law you have to call the police if somebody dies. They have to come and make sure you didn't kill them. There's a piece of paper that they sign. I tried to do prayers for one monk in New Jersey and the police came and said, you can't do prayers. He has to go to the hospital. I'm like, no, I got to do prayers. He's in the Bardo, that's my job. They said, no, no, by law he has to go in the refrigerator within, I don't know, three hours or four hours? By law. If you keep him here we can charge you. I'm like, then what happened? We both went in the ambulance and I stayed in the refrigerator with him for like four hours. I had all these coats on and I was doing the Bardo prayers. Okay? In this country, I don't know other countries, but by law they have to go in the refrigerator because it smells and insects come and it spreads. It spreads disease. It's been that way.

So we're talking about a new world and a new way.

By the way, how much time I got, Tim? Ten minutes? Good. Okay, this is the caves.

The mountain you see in the background is partly sand dunes, but it's partly that porous rock and that's where there's 700 caves have been carved out of the mountain and it's a beautiful place to go. If you get a chance in your lifetime you should go there. Can you imagine 700 retreat cabins? Can you imagine 700 people meditating at the same time in retreat cabins for a thousand years? Can you imagine such a thing?

There's a funny story that one monk was there, by the way, well anyway…

He was having a cigarette illegally. Monks aren't supposed to smoke. Oh, he's Taoist? I didn't know. So, he's leaning against a cave wall and he's smoking and he noticed the smoke and it goes into the wall. And he's like, that's strange. The smoke is going into the wall. And he saw a crack in the wall and then he realized it's a fake wall. It's not the edge of the cave. And they dig, dig, dig and they found 60,000 books hidden behind the wall.

They were stolen by four countries. France, Russia, Britain and U.S. And there's some books still there. Most of the books were stolen by those four countries. But anyway, we are working on those books. Stanley, Rosa has a project to make jewelry and those bags, special bags, Good Night Book Club bags. And if we sell the jewelry in China or we sell the bag in China or Vietnam or any other country, we donate the profit, after salaries, we donate the profit to something in the same country. That's our tradition. So we've, Rosa has donated $30,000 last year to Stanley's project to save the books in Dunhuang and to make a catalog.

I saw those books in Russia. We were in St. Petersburg for 12 years and a Chinese team came from the Chinese government. So we were having lunch together all the time with the team from China and our Russian team. We were working together on the books. It was very fun. It was very beautiful. You want an old man story?

We worked together. We were there for 12 years. We paid all the salaries and we cataloged 141,000 books in 12 years. On the next floor, the Chinese scholars, our sister team from China, they are cataloging the Dunhuang books that were stolen by Russia. So we eat lunch together. 

Then one day they said to us, and we can barely speak to each other, they said, we're going home, we're finished. We're like, oh man, we like hanging out with you guys. We like having lunches together. They said, yeah, well, we're finished. We took film of all the Dunhuang books. We're going back home. Then that night they went home, took all their equipment home to their apartment in St. Petersburg and the police came. They locked them, handcuffed them to the plumbing in the bathroom and they stole all their equipment and they stole all the slides and everything. Then we called the police. They stole everything. We called the police. Also one of our guys was kidnapped. They said, pay $50,000 or we'll kill him. We're like, phew.

Anyway, we called the police and they said, why you stole their equipment? They said, we didn't go there. Somebody dressed up like police. Somebody bought a police uniform and went to their apartment and got inside. They never got their slides. They never got their copies. They went home. They were scared. We stayed. John Brady finished, so we should give them a hand. 

We are using the Dunhuang manuscripts in the new empowerment. If you take empowerment in October, you have to talk to who? Tim? Talk to Tim. There's no room for everybody who wants to go. By the way, I need to reserve some places for some of my friends. You have to talk to Tim. We have to figure out a way to find space for more people. We have to figure out some way. It'll be at Dragon's Head in Rimrock, the capital of the universe. Alright? We will be using some manuscripts from Dunhuang. We already translated them and it's very exciting. It's very, very exciting. These are written in Tibetan script in Chinese calligraphy style, vertically, which is very, very rare. I've never seen that before. So it's kind of cool. Alright? Two minutes for questions. You decide. Tim or who? Microphone person?

Q&A

How to work with my seeds to see more Aryas in our world?

[Lama Sarahni: I have a burning question but I have no voice to ask it.]

I've always found it was really pleasant when the students got laryngitis. 

[Lama Sarahni: Thank you for always pushing me. A few days ago I heard you say you have never seen another Arya. And my question is how do I work with my seeds in order to hear you say I see many Aryas in my world?]

That's a good question. I'll repeat. Sarahni said, I heard you say a few days ago that you never saw another Arya. How can I change my seeds to make it happen that you say you saw many Aryas?

We're doing it. Just keep doing what we're doing. I believe that the organizations that… Each organization, we have technically on paper we have 41 organizations. And it's very, very difficult for me. Because in the end I have to be the umpire. What do you call it? I have to be the referee. I have to keep them all cooperating with each other and funding and it's really, really difficult. It's like having 41 kids. I mean it's my pleasure to do it but it's difficult. It takes many, many hours every day. But each organization's goal is to produce Aryas. In the end the purpose of all the 41 organizations is to produce Aryas. I believe that each organization has a unique ability to create Aryas. So like YSI is creating Aryas through asana practice. Like that. And then the translators are creating Aryas through studying the ancient books. Like that. I believe that each different organization was designed to have a unique ability to create a different kind of Arya from different raw material. You see what I mean?

So we try to identify all the kinds of students there are and then we created that many organizations. I don't think you can do less than 41. You can't force the yoga people to meditate all day and you can't force the meditators to do headstands all day. They won't do it. It won't help them. So you kind of have to have… Each one of those organizations was designed to create Aryas in a different format. Or through a different training. So that's why they all exist. I would love to cut some of them. I don't think I can. I tried to cut YSI in my schedule. And like the next night I had some kind of weird experience. I said, oh my god, we got to keep YSI. I had some weird channel experience. And I'm like, oh, we got to keep YSI. Each one is designed... 

And I truly believe that each organization is succeeding. You don't see it. You just see the organization that you're in. But grandpa has to worry about all of them. I have to keep them cooperating with each other. I have to make sure they don't steal each other's funding. Stuff like that. I have to keep them all going. And it's a big hassle. It's an extraordinary hassle. But each one is creating Aryas of their own kind, and it's working. I say it's working. So I would say if we can support each other, all of the different organizations, all the different teachers teaching slightly differently the same Arya-producing information, that we will be successful and we'll have a big crop of Aryas. Okay? So that's my belief. Okay? Okay. Take a break.

See you in ... I'll get your question on the way back when we come back. Okay? What time we start again? Oh, please stay. Please stay. Really? For that? You sure you want to do it now?

Please sit for a moment. Okay? Tim's going to make an announcement.

[Tim: Okay. Alright, so very quickly. A couple things. So, where are the envelopes? So we have envelopes for various types of offerings to volunteers and teachers and Geshe Michael. So if they're here, they're passing around. Just wanted to remind you about all that. And then there's one thing I did want to chat with you all.

As Geshehla just said, his organizations, there's 41 organizations and they're around the world in various places. And each organization has its own audience and it has its own way of presenting. And they're tailored to different cultures and different ... It's designed for all types of people and where they are. And Five Houses, as we are a worldwide organization, there's also some places where Five Houses ... There's such diversity in the world. And so we have a diverse way of doing things. All right? And so one of the things that we do at Five Houses is that we respect all the laws, regulations, policies in every single country. 

And it's a gift that many people can come out of some of those countries to visit the Five Houses. But we have to be very, very careful with what we're doing and how we're doing it. And so when you're here, it's beautiful. Please, please, share all the materials. But also know that there's some places where we have to be very sensitive with Five Houses materials. And that's why we have 41 organizations. There were some Five Houses teachers that came to me last year and I asked them not to teach somewhere and they taught there anyway. And I was like, please, don't do that. There's reasons. There's reasons.

As Geshehla was saying, these ideas are unnatural in a way, right? We're trying to change things through kindness and compassion and we have to respect everybody where they are. And we respect all the laws and countries and policies around the world. And we don't push it. In fact, I've been to all of those countries and I love going there. And it's so sweet and so beautiful to see different choices of the ways to live a life, right? And so I don't think we should see it as restrictions. I just see it as respecting others. Respecting what they want and how they want to promote a healthy society, okay? So just keep that in mind.

And I don't want to be harsh about it and I think we should be gentle and celebrate, but we also just have to be mindful. So Five Houses, it's beautiful that we're here at Diamond Mountain and when you do go home, please be mindful that some places we're just not there, okay? Including teachers as well. So think about some people, and I've done that, why do I have to see it? 

Because I've done it. I thought that I could just go under the radar, right? No one will notice. I'm not important. I don't have impact. But that's not the case, right? Each and every one of you is important and each and every one of you will have impact. So just please be careful and please be respectful of what other people want. We don't push on other people, right? And if you think about seeds, you understand why.

We just unfortunately have to say things like that sometimes, but I also think it's a good lesson for us to respect what other people need and are asking for. And it's a gift that you can come here, and it's a beautiful seed that we are here, and that we have so many people online. We're in 12 languages. We have 2,000 people registered for this program. You know, it's amazing what we're doing. You know, the world has 8 billion people and we're only 2,000. So, it's a good start. Okay? It's a good start.

So we are going to be going to retreat tomorrow, and so Geshehla has one more class, and then we're going to start the preparations. We're going to start how to get into retreat, getting ready, and then through tomorrow we're then going to do all those very special preparations, including the boundary ceremony, where we'll be protecting the SAM, protecting our retreat space, our mind, and our physical space. And then we'll have a couple days to find joyful effort. Yeah, I mean, it was great. I walked in this morning and someone, I was like, how are you? And she was like, I'm awesome. I'm like, great. Like, let's have more ‘I'm awesome’. So let's take a break, and we'll see you in a few minutes, and thank you all very much.

[2:04]

So a few years ago I got a PhD from the National University of Mexico, UNAM, and they asked me to go to the Congress and give a talk. So I'm on the right side in the special hat, and I have something in my hand, what's that? Yeah, I was teaching PEN, and then I asked Stanley to get up and teach the pen also, I think, right? Something like that. What did you teach? I forgot. But I asked Stanley to get up and give a talk at the same time, and it was very fun in the Congress of Mexico.

A hundred dollars, why am I talking about that? Wait, wait, wait, you got to raise your hand, there's a system.

[student: It's my first time also. Thank you. So, you're talking about the pen story, it's going to plant a seed to the people.]

That's okay, but it's not the answer.

[student: Talking about the emptiness.]

I always talk about emptiness. It's a secret, it's a difficult answer.

[student: Geshe Michael teach how things exist, how everything comes from his side…]

That's correct, but that's not the answer today. Okay, one more try. One more try.

[student: I think it's because you say that the world is changing. It's not normal for the world, but you're teaching it in Parliament, so it's showing that the world is changing.]

Kiri, by the way, you don't get the money, it goes to your college fund.

[Kiri: Kids need help in Mexico, because they're getting overweight and all that?]

Not exactly. Okay, cancel the bet, otherwise we spend the whole day.

This was... If you notice, in front of Stanley is an eagle. And on the national flag in the National Congress, behind Grandpa, there's two eagles. Then there's another eagle in the middle. Ay-yah. What's it mean? Yeah, yeah.

Who's the eagle? Patience.

Who's the snake? Anger.

Where do they live? In here. [pointing to his chest] In here. Okay? They are international. They are international. So I was trying to remind you of this old... This is an old Sanskrit saying, bhujanga, who walks on the palm of their hand, which is a snake. And that represents your anger. We are talking mainly in this retreat, I'd like you to focus on effort. So that means... I don't like the word effort, virya. It's too boring. And actually, I think the joyful effort is a very good translation.

So it means, in your practice, in your meditation, in your retreat, in your yoga, you have to have fun. And that's required.

By who? Buddha.

And people don't talk about it. I don't know why they don't talk about it.

Perfection number four, the fourth perfection, is have fun during your practice. Have fun during your practice. Don't be like [grumpy], I gotta meditate. Don't be grumpy that you have to meditate. Have fun. You're lucky to be alive. You're lucky you have a brain. You're lucky you're eating this week. You're lucky they're not bombing your house. You are very lucky. So be happy. You're lucky. You're super lucky. And have fun with your practice.

I really don't like serious Buddhist people. They are boring. They're like, Oh my. I'm like, smile, at least smile. The fourth perfection is have fun. If you are doing your practice well, if you are doing the six perfections, then you are having fun. You should be having fun. Does it mean you don't have sickness? Does it mean you don't see bad things in the world? Does it mean you don't have people you don't agree with? It doesn't mean that.

Everybody has hard things. Everybody. You're not special. This is the democracy of life. Everybody has equal pain. Everybody has equal suffering. Everybody has equal disappointment. We all have. There's nobody who doesn't have it.

Those rich, handsome... What's his name? I hate this guy. Brad Pitt. He also has trouble. He's also going to die. He's also getting older. His last movie is F1. He plays the older race car driver who's almost finished his career. And I felt so sad because when the actor gets that part of the older race car driver, it's just before they die. They get this part. I feel... Everybody has trouble. Everybody has problems. Don't think you are special. Your problems are not the worst in the world. Probably there's some guy in Brazil or something who has the worst problems in the world. I don't know. But it's definitely not us. We have this class.

Have fun and don't be too serious. I think the worst thing in the world is a boring, serious Buddhist person. If you are really learning to stop your suffering, you should be a little bit happy. And you should be... I don't know. You shouldn't be grumpy or too serious. Don't be too serious. Always laugh. Laugh at yourself is the best. And your practice will be good. 

That's why joyful effort is in the middle of the perfections. That's why it's number four. You use it for the first three, and you use it for the second two. So have fun. Have fun with your practice.

If you're not having fun with your practice, you have to fix your practice. Something's wrong. Something's wrong. Have fun.

Geshehla, I have cancer. I don't care.

Geshehla, my husband's a bad guy. I don't care.

You are lucky. You are super lucky. Smile once in a while. And have fun. You have a chance. Other people don't. So smile and be a little bit happy. Stanley's like... [lifting his lips to a smile with his fingers] Yeah, have fun. Have fun with your practice. Otherwise, I think it's not... Something's wrong.

The fourth perfection, which we taught in this retreat, is to have fun.

What you're going to meditate about in the next four days, how can you use that? How can you use that in your life? How can you go home with a smile?

And good people smile even when things are difficult. Even when they're very sick, or they have family problems, or stuff like that. They are still like... People say, how are you? I'm okay. They're still smiling.

There's a thing in Buddhism about being a flower for the world. In China, they have this thing, I think. We should be... They say that you should... The reason when you wake up, comb your hair, shave if you have time, put on some nice clothes, and smile, is that a good Buddhist meditator should be like a flower on the side of the road.

Sometimes we come from Tucson or something, and the wildflowers are growing near the side of the road, and they're so beautiful. Nobody planted them. They're just there. And they make everybody's day happier. Everyone who drives down the highway, they see the wildflowers, and they feel a little bit happier. You should be a wildflower. You should be the wildflower in the world. 

People don't know you, but they see you, and you are smiling, and you look like you're having a good time. Then it makes their day happier. So that's joyful effort. It doesn't cost you anything. You don't have to pay to smile. And it will help somebody else. It will make their life a little bit easier.

So I think perfection number four is the most important one. Every teacher of Buddhism has this debate. What's the most important perfection? Nobody says number four. I say number four. Be happy with your practice. Have fun with your practice. If you're a serious, serious Buddhist, it's so boring. And I don't think it's very successful. So have fun. Even if your life is difficult, have fun. 

There's something good about your life. You're still breathing. So far. Okay? All right.

We were talking about patience, and I wanted to go to the next picture. Yeah.

So we visited Xi'an by accident. We were in Dunhuang. We did a program there. It was a very beautiful program. Thank you for taking us to Dunhuang. I love this place. It's like the Diamond Mountain of China, of Asia. I really like to go there. It's a big blessing to go there. If you can go there in your life, you should try to go there one time.

that picture I show of Veronica, you got that one? These guys, every time they get good, I always make them do something strange. Yeah, that's the…

In the cave where they found the 60,000 books, they built this front to the cave. It's a false front. It's a pagoda. This is the library at Dunhuang. This is where they found the Diamond Cutter. This is where the Diamond Cutter Sutra comes from. The oldest book in the world, with a date inside, came from that cave. It was a little tiny cave. That's where the monk was illegally smoking. Just imagine if he wasn't smoking, we wouldn't find the books. That was the monk. It's okay. They do good stuff. Anyway, they built this false front to the cave. I think you should go there. If you can go there, it's very beautiful to go there. Now let's go back to Xuanzang. We call our translation group classes Xuanzang Tower. This is the tower. The Emperor of China, Tang Taizong, Emperor of the Tang Dynasty, Tang Qiao, Xuanzang asked him, he's a young man, 20-something, he asked the Emperor, can I go to India? The Emperor said, no. If you go, I will kill you. I will have someone kill you. He went anyway. 

He crossed the Gobi Desert. Nobody expected him to walk across the Gobi Desert, so he went that way. When he got back, 17 years later, he has, I don't know, 2,000 books? Something like that. 1,400 or something. He started to translate. He translated them in this tower. The Emperor announced, he's so smart, he's such a good guy, that he found all these books and brought them back to China. He became a hero by the person who wanted to kill him before. That's always the way it happens. He became famous for translating in that tower. This is his statue at Dunhuang.

I like him. They made everybody wonder why he didn't get killed for 17 years. He went through 51 kingdoms. The custom at that time is someone traveling to your country, you grab them and you put them in chains and you make them a slave for the rest of their life at your house, to stay in your house. There's no law, there's no police, there's no nothing. It's just 51 wild countries. He walked through each one. No one touched him. They said later, maybe he had the assistance of... Can I say Guanyin or something? He had the assistance of a Buddha, Lady Buddha. That's why he didn't get captured or killed. Then he had a special rake and a special horse and a monkey. Who's the last one?

Anyway, these are magical people who travel with him and protect him. There came to be a story like that later, hundreds of years later. That became one of the four great books of China. It's called Journey to the West. It became one of the most popular books in Chinese history.

Forgiving is a Form of Patience

Why are we talking about that? I was talking about patience. I want to talk about patience. Patience means partly to forgive other people. When someone hurts you and somebody does something bad to you, then you let it go. You let it go.

I say you can let it go the same day or you can wait ten years. Okay? You have freedom. Everybody has this freedom. You can decide how long you're going to take before you forget it, before you forgive it. I went to a talk by an American nun. I don't remember her name. She gave a good talk in Seattle or something. I heard this talk and I liked it.

She said she had a friend and she asked the friend, are you married? The friend said, no, I'm not married. I've been divorced. How long? Ten years. I've been divorced for ten years. Then she asked him, why you got divorced? She said, ten years ago he was cheating with another woman and then he said this thing to me. Unbelievable. I like this other lady. I don't like you so much. She quoted the husband's talk directly. Ten years later.

Then the nun, she laughed. She said, do you think your husband remembers this talk? She said, no, I guess he doesn't remember this talk. She said, no, not only that. Ten years later, you have trouble to memorize your prayers. You have trouble to memorize shin ching, Heart Sutra, but you memorize what your husband said to you. What the bad thing that your husband said to you, you can say word for word. Ten years later, you can remember what he said word for word. And he forgot it ten years ago. He forgot it ten years ago. He's not thinking about it. You're holding it for ten years. Direct quotation. You're holding it in your mind for ten years. Let it go. At some time, you will forget what he said. Or you will die. And then you forget. Understand?

Number one, you forget before you die what he said. And you forget about him completely. I was married before I forgot everything. I just give it up.

Or you can hold it, hold it, hold it, hold it. Then you die. Then you forget it. So, why wait? If you're going to forget it anyway, or you're going to die and you're going to forget it.

How about you forget it the next day? Okay?

Someone says something bad to you. Someone hurt you? Someone did something to hurt you? Then why should you wait ten years? Why should you wait twenty years? Why should you wait until you die? Just forget it today. Forget it the next day.

And I challenge you, see if you can forget it in half a day. Someone really hurt you. See if you can forget it in half a day. Then see if you can forget it in three hours. Then see if you can forget it in one hour. Then see if you can forget it right after they say it.

Like, do you believe what she said to you? What? I don't remember. It was ten minutes ago. Yeah, I don't remember. I have developed my capacity to forget. I have a super capacity to forget.

In English we say forget and forgive. I forgot and I forgave them right after they said it, the moment they said it.

Geshehla, you're an asshole. I'm like, excuse me? I forgot. Okay? Really. Really, give it up.

You want to advance? People want Diamond Way, Tantric practice. Forgive them before they call you an asshole. Okay?

It sounds like this guy is warming up to call me an asshole. Then you're like, I forgive you before you say the next sentence. I forgive you in advance. Really. Because you can tell when someone's about to explode, right? And you can forgive them before they get angry. And that's patience. 

That's the skill of forgetting it before they start. The skill of forgetting it before they start.

I put these diamonds here. Somebody came up to me, Jasmine Yao came up to me two weeks ago, or a week, ten days ago, at Peachtree. She said, Geshehla, we have a request. And I'm like, oh no. Then I said, what's the request? And she said, there's a new technology. You can make diamonds cheap. That technology existed in 1957. General Electric made a diamond. They made a one carat diamond. Real diamond. And it took enough electricity to run a city for five hours. It was enough electricity to run a city for five hours.

And they melt the pencil, pencil lead, carbon, and they create a diamond under pressure. But the pressure requires a lot of pneumatic pressure. And I was, at that time I was writing gemology articles for the Gemology Institute. So I translated those secret books about Russian learned how to make diamonds. So they found a, the Russians found a, you want to hear the whole story?

[audience: Yeah.]

I like stories. Did I tell you that?

The United States was fighting with Russia, as usual. And then you need diamonds to make everything. Because diamond is the only thing that can cut steel easily. So if you want to make a car engine, you need diamonds. If you want to drill for oil, you need diamonds on the oil drill. You need diamonds. The world needs diamonds.

So most of the diamonds at that time came from Africa. And the United States created a system where the Russian government cannot get diamonds. So the Russian government decided they want to find diamonds in their own country. Russia is the largest country in the world, I think. So they have a lot of place to look for diamonds. They send out many teams to try to find diamonds, because without diamonds you cannot make anything. You cannot make weapons, you cannot make anything. And the United States was blocking the diamond supply. So they went and went and went.

Diamonds are grown, diamonds come from the middle of the earth. They are created under the pressure of the middle of the earth. And they come from liquid stone. So the middle of the core of the earth is liquid stone. And when there's a volcano, then the diamonds are brought up to the top of the earth. And then the volcano blows up, and it spreads the diamonds. The volcano pipe has diamonds in it. And if you can find it, those pipes have blue stone. It's a blue stone. It's called kimberlite. And it has a specific color, blue-green stone. The pipe, the lava, liquid rock is blue-green. So when you go looking for diamonds, you look for a blue-green stone, and you look for garnets, red-ruby-like stone. It's made at the same time as the diamond.

If you want to find a diamond pipe, you go and check ants. You walk around and you look at the ants, and you see if they are carrying up little pieces of red stone. And that's the garnets. Then you know there's kimberlite. You know there's a diamond ore. Okay, got it?

So there's a Russian geologist, a lady. She's in Siberia. She's near, what's that lake? Baikal. And they are looking for diamond pipes. They're also hungry, because the government sent them without supplies. They have to shoot their own food. So she's walking around. They give her a rifle. They say, go find... I heard someone else knows how to shoot a rifle. Recently, I heard this story. 

Anyway, she's looking, and she saw a fox, a red fox. And she aimed the rifle with the telescope. And she sees he has a blue collar on his red fur. And she realized he's digging in the kimberlite. So she followed the fox. She didn't kill him. And he took her to his hole. And they found the largest diamond mine in the world. It's called Mir. Mir means two meanings, peace or world, which is very beautiful. The Russian word for peace is also the Russian word for world.

So they named the mine the Mir mine. And it was the largest mine in the world.

Then the Gemology Institute contacted me. And they said, you speak Russian. Yeah, badly. You read Russian better. Yes. You know, if people publish books about the Mir mine, it's capital punishment. They can be killed. It's against the law to talk about this mine in Russia. It's illegal to write anything about it. Death penalty.

Then I found some articles, secret articles. Should I tell you where? John, I'll give you a clue. Two lions on Fifth Avenue. New York Public Library. They have all these Russian articles about the Mir mine. You know, secret articles. I translated them. And I can show them to you sometimes. They're semi-famous.

And there were some articles about producing diamonds artificially. Real diamond. We're not talking fake diamond. The Russians also invented cubic zirconium, which is fake diamond. But they learned how to make real diamond. You still want some more?

To make a real diamond, you have to melt the carbon at very high temperatures. Very, very high temperatures. If you add iron to the mix, iron chemical, it will lower the melting point. Then it's cheaper. You can make the diamond cheaper.

To buy a one carat diamond flawless is about $30,000. To make one at that time was maybe a million dollars. So there's no reason to make it. But if you add iron, you can make it for $20,000. Then you can cheat everybody in the world and make $10,000 per carat.

But with a microscope, you can find the iron. Or you can test it. There's ways to test it and find the iron. Okay?

Recently, the good news is, they learned how to make them with a different system. And you can make a real diamond cheap. $30 a carat. $30 for a $30,000 stone. And they are perfect. In fact, how do you detect them? They're too good. You see?

So the Russians, they're so cool. They put flaws in the diamond. So it looks natural. You see what I mean? So that was the article I discovered. Anyway, I got famous for that. That you don't know about. But while I talk about it, Jasmine said recently they got a new system of making diamonds. And they use the carbon in your hair. You cut a little bit of your hair and they make a diamond from it. So we're going to make a plan. They're going to make some Geshe Michael hair diamonds. And we'll give them away in... Or she'll sell them, I guess, in Xi'an. That's why the hair and the diamond is with Xuanzang. If you come to Xi'an in April, we will be teaching Diamond Cutter Sutra and giving out diamonds. And then if you get on the airplane, you can fly to Dunhuang, and you can see the caves. I encourage you to... If you can get... Even if you're not Chinese…

I was on the plane to Beijing. And there's a lady sitting next to me. She's an older lady and she's very nervous. She looks like she's afraid to fly. She asked me, Are you going to Beijing? I said, Yeah, I'm on the plane. Then she said, Is it safe in Beijing? Can I go to Beijing? Is it going to be safe? I said, Listen, Beijing is the safest city in the world. You just came from New York, which is the most dangerous city in the world. And you're flying to Beijing, which is the safest city in the world. And it's beautiful. And the people are so kind and so happy and so sweet. And I told her, Don't worry. You're going to have a good time. You're going to have a really good time.

So I encourage you to go see Xi'an, if you can see it, and see China.

Westerners, my dentist, said, Where are you going next? I said, China. He said, Be careful. I'm like, Why? He said, Very dangerous. I said, You have been to China? No.

It's the most beautiful, happy place. The people are so beautiful and kind. So shut up. And fix my tooth. So I encourage you to go, if you can go. It's a beautiful place. And Xi'an is, for me, history. 

Historically, this is like the capital of Buddhism in history. This is the most amazing city. And when you go there, and you walk around Xuanzang's Tower, you can go inside. You can walk up to the top. You can sit where he was sitting when he translated the Heart Sutra, or the Dharmakara Sutra. I went and snuck over there and sat there. And they let you to sit there. And it's so beautiful. The thing is very, very beautiful. And very modern. There's a Sheraton? Hilton. Westin. There's a Westin across the street. And there's a luxury hotel. Not luxury, but there's good hotels around. I encourage you to go. If you can, then go. If you can't get in, talk to Jenny or Vivian, they can get you in. They'll get you a ticket, right? She's like... It's alright. Yay.

We'll cover the Diamond Cutter Sutra. And then my suggestion is go take the flight to Dunhuang and see the caves and bring it back here and help make this place a great retreat center for a thousand years. You see? Okay? Deal? Agree? Try. Mazel tov. Mazal ubrakhar. Right? Yeah, that's what we say in the diamond business. It's a deal. So go. If you can go, go. It's a beautiful place. And you might get some diamonds there.

Then I wanted to... How much time I got? Okay. Tim's nervous. He looks nervous to you? He's afraid I won't fundraise. So I'm going to fundraise a little bit. Don't fall asleep yet. So ACI... We started it, I think, in 1991. Am I right? 1993. I taught every day of the week. And I was working full-time. More than full-time. And I taught every day of the week. And we decided to have Buddhist classes, and they're free. They're completely free.

So I worked. And the money I made from working, I spent... Like the readings were all free. And it was funny. Rob Haggerty... I finished the translation 15 minutes before class. He would run to the printer. Chinese guy. Russian or Chinese? Chinese. King's Copies. Yeah, he would run there. The guy would print the ACI readings. And they would go to the class and they're still hot. The reading is still hot. We would have these readings there.

So we started the custom of being free. That the classes should be free. And we kept that custom up till now. So we don't charge. That's the... The ACI courses are the essence of the Geshe course. If you do well in your ACI courses, you are learning everything that a Geshe... You're learning the important things that a Geshe is learning.

I went to India. I went to a town called Bangalore, city called Bangalore. My teacher visited me. He brought two Geshes with him, young Geshes. And Orit was with me. Who was the other one? Hasso? Juan? Yeah, Juan was with me. Orit Vasek was with me.

So we're sitting with my teacher and the two young Geshes. And I said, Let's have a debate. You know? And they're like, What? I said, Let's have my two ACI students debate these two baby Geshes, and let's see who wins. They're like... Young Geshes are very proud. And they're like, Oh yeah, let's go. We'll do it. And I said, Geshe Lothar will be the judge. He's this old friendly monk. And he said, I'll be the judge. They debated and I translated. Orit and Juan kicked their ass.

Then I thought, Wow, these ACI courses are pretty good. Because we took the essence out of the Geshe course. And I was really proud. That day I was really proud of Juan. And... That was before Peach Tree World News. Because if it was after, then they would all be on the news.

Why am I talking about that? We had board meetings here this week for ACI, Five houses, and we are struggling to pay for ACI. I'm talking the people who work for ACI don't get paid. We don't have money to pay them. Because we don't charge anything. But they have kids. It's very irritating. They keep having kids. Like Shanti. Right, Pachi?

So... I feel bad because they have kids and they're working for us and they don't have any money. They don't have any pay. So I fundraised for that. We made a new system where I told Tim every... I will try once a week. On Saturday morning I teach meditation in Rimrock to the local friends. I said we will film 101 meditations. I agreed to teach 101 meditations.

Then it was the 30th anniversary of ACI. Five houses. So I made a proposal called 30-30-30. It means 30th anniversary of ACI. 30... No. Oh, can you give $30 a month? Can you give $1 a day? Can anybody give $1 a day? It's not going to kill anybody. Everybody can do $1 a day. So we made a new system. It's called 30-30-30. We're going to keep it up until 2030, something like that. Then we'll keep it up until 2130. But we asked people, will you donate $1 a day? And in return, Geshehla is recording 101 meditations. These are the meditations I was taught for 25 years. And we will film them. The people who give $1 a day, they get the meditation video. And they can use it for their own practice. That's the deal.

You offer $1 a day. You get these videos. We don't give them to other people for six months. You get six months in advance. You get to follow the 101 meditations as we create them. They are each one hour long. That's the deal.

Now, you want the good news or the bad news? Good news is always better first. 500 people signed up. Am I right? Fine. Yeah. So 500 people get the meditations. Hot off the stove. Fresh. As soon as I do them, they send them out. So for $1 a day, you get a video of a new meditation and that pays roughly half, can I say half, of the expense of five houses. It pays the salaries.

We don't pay the teachers. The teachers don't charge the students. But we try to help the teachers to fly, like the Guadalajara teachers. They are flying to how many countries? Seven or eight countries. Uruguay, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, and Mexico. Peru. They are flying and they are teaching. Somebody has to pay for the airplane. I bought them all suits. They look hot. My wife and I bought them all suits. By the way, you look really good in those suits.

So we need something to help them. And it's not enough. We don't have enough. So therefore, if you are not signed up to offer $1 a day, I'm asking you to sign up. We have 1,900 people registered for this course. 1,900 people registered for this course. Only 500 are donating. That's 1,400 more. I'm trying to get 1,399 to sign up for $1 a day.

And being a diamond dealer, I have a new deal to make with you. I meditate every morning. Then I thought... Tim asked me, can you think of a new fundraising theme? And I'm like... Then I thought I would do meditation with you every morning. But I decided not to. Because I can't focus. I don't want to get up and worry if the Zoom call is working. I think it would disturb my meditation, to be honest. Because I have enough of that. My whole day is like that. I have to go here. I have to go there. I have to be on time. They're going to start at a certain time filming. And it feels weird for me to film my meditation. So I have another deal to offer you.

If you sign up, or if you already signed up, we have an idea, Tim and me have an idea. That on your phone, there will be a red light go on. And that means Grandpa is meditating. Right now. Okay? It's usually... I can tell you it's going to be about 6.30 or 7 o'clock Arizona time. Almost every day. I skip Sundays. I take a day off and I raise the time by five minutes or something. So it's about an hour now. It's 52 minutes right now. The red light will go on your phone. Or wherever. We don't know yet. Probably David can figure it out. But that means Grandpa is meditating.

I thought it would be really powerful if we all meditate together. So that's 9.30 Beijing time. And that's not so bad. You could do your Good Night Book Club meditation. You could do your coffee meditation while Grandpa's red light is on, something like that. So if around the world, if we all... You don't have to do it every day, but I do it almost every day. I miss a day sometimes. If I have to teach on Saturday, I do it later in the day. But we'll have a thing where it goes on red light.

What do you have to do? One dollar a day?

If you're already giving one dollar a day, they get it for free, right?

If you're not doing one dollar a day, I ask you to do one dollar a day. It's not going to kill you.

We used to say to people, put your spare change in the... Now they don't have change anymore. 

So I ask you shamelessly, to help. You can give a dollar a day and ignore the red light. But we will develop it shortly, right Tim? I think to see the power of people meditating around the whole world together at the same time, I think it'd be awesome.

Now Europeans are screwed, I'm sorry. It's going to be, let's see, eight plus nine, it's five in the morning. No, five in the evening. Oh, it's okay. Yeah, you're okay. Yeah, my 6 a.m., 7 a.m. is good for everybody, I think. Unless... Australians, I'm sorry, I can't help you. Hawaii... Okay, all right.

So please... Tim, how do they sign up? Right there. Okay, so take your phone. I see everyone's pulling out their phone. Maybe the people in this room are already doing it. Okay. We're already there. All right.

But I encourage you, if you're listening online, I encourage you to join that. It doesn't hurt you, one dollar a day, and then we can keep teaching for free. And I like that. I really like that.

You'll be interested to know when you start the Geshe course, a monk in the monastery has to sponsor you. Somebody has to say, he's with me. Geshe Lodar did for me. So they take you to the abbot's office, and they say, he's mine. He's mine, I vouch for him. I promise he will not misbehave. Much. Then each person who joins the monastery, someone has to sponsor you. After you're sponsored, and after they write your name, there's a book called, say, GYI RDUG GCIG PA, GYI RDUG GCIG PA.

GYI means happy. RDUG means sad. GCIG PA means one for all, all for one.

If we're happy, we're all happy. If we suffer, we all suffer. But it means we all stick together. When things are good, we stick together. When things are bad, we stick together.

And joining the monastery is called GYI RDUG GCIG PA–join the happy sad. Join the everybody happy sad together. It's called that. The name for that is GYI RDUG GCIG PA.

Then they put your name in the book, and then you start your classes. From the day that they put your name in the book, no one can charge you anything for 25 years. Okay? The Geshe course is free. No one ever paid for a Geshe course. And you're studying for, I don't know, it's about 15 hours a day, 16 hours a day, for 25 years. You're not allowed to pay. No one's allowed to pay. Everyone takes care of everybody else. And it's a beautiful system. Okay?

I would like to keep that system.

When I met my teacher, the day I met my teacher, I gave him two things. Momo, which I made myself, dim sum, and my bankbook, I gave to him. He took the Momo, and he goes... Then, much later, he told me he threw it out in the forest. We had a forest outside. He threw it in the forest. He said, I hope it didn't make the animals sing.

Then he took the bankbook, he said, what's this? And I said, this is my bankbook. I offer you everything I have. Then he went like this, and he threw it at me and it hit me, and he says, I don't need your goddamn money. I will teach you. But it's free. It's always free. He never charged anything for 25 years.

So, let's do that way. Let's keep it up. But you need to help. Everybody has to help. Otherwise, we can't do it. Okay? And look how skinny Tim got without any support at all. All right.

Diamond Way Empowerment in October 2026 in Dreagon’s Head

We have a few minutes for Q&A? Yeah, I think that's all. The empowerment is in…

If you want to, and there's different empowerments you can take nowadays. You're welcome to take any empowerment you want. That's up to you. That's your right. My job is to prepare you. So, there's many empowerments you can take. If you'd like to take the one, if you'd like to add the one, it'll be in October. And I have to say, it's super sexy. And it's really, really cool. It's very ancient. We're using some material from Dunhuang from 1,400 years ago. And it's very, very beautiful. And people are working very hard. It will be held at Dragon's Head, which is a new center in Rimrock. Huge, beautiful land. And it's limited. I think it's 130 people can fit there. And we'll have to figure out some way to help the other people. But talk to Tim, right? Can I say that? Good. Fight with Tim. But you're very welcome to come.

My idea is two days of... My idea is this. I want you to understand the empowerment. So I will teach you for two days. First of all, I will publish it, the translation, in your language. I will give you a copy before. And then we'll study it together. And then, when I hit you on the head with a rock, you understand what's going on. Okay? I want you to understand what the hell is going on.

I will train you what it is, and I will give you the text. The text will be about 200 or 300 pages. Maybe 300 pages. I'll give you a copy and print it for you.

I had this idea to make it... I've seen a kind of binding where you can lay it down flat. My Volkswagen fixing manual had a special binding. And you can put it down flat and you don't have to hold it and you can look at it while you fix the car. So I like that. So it'll be something like that. You can set it down and you can have your bell and everything and you can follow it. So it'll be something like that. Because I also want you to be able to give it to other people responsibly. And I want you to know what's going on.

So there'll be two days of training what's going on. And then three days of the empowerment. Free, I think. Tim, can I say free? Are you having a hard time? Did we intend that? Was that the idea? Okay. Well, from my side, it's free. We might have to fundraise for... There's a lot of stuff. There's 180 things you need to do the empowerment. Weird stuff. Some of it costs some money. Like gold powder. Someone has to pay for that. Stuff like that. But my idea is free, right? Generally, no charge. All right. Questions?

Oh, but you have to finish your Lam Rim. You have to finish your Lam Rim and the homeworks, or forget it. Just don't even ask. Do not come the week before and say, I want to come and I don't want to do any homework. And I will put my footprint on your pigu. Pigu is Chinese for how do you say [in russian]? Okay. Anyway. Okay. Don't ask weird stuff. Do what you're supposed to do before. Don't ask me to break the rules. I hate that. All right? You know the rules, then do it.

All right. Last question.

Q&A

How to find my root teacher that is close to me?

[student: We are students from Asia. And we really want to learn the Vajrayana deeply and help more people. I heard that to learn Vajrayana you have to find a fundamental guru and connect with him and guide you through this path. I want to find a root teacher who guides you through this path. I want to find such teacher. And we all want to find such teacher. But I think myself quite conflicted. Many students hope you can be their teacher including me. But I also have this another voice in my heart. After I studied Buddhism for five years, this is the second time that I talk to you like this. And I feel like sometimes it's hard for me to talk to you. And I rarely had a chance to speak with you. So there's been some thoughts in my heart. I wonder if I should do this or not. Some people said you can connect with the teacher in the distance and you can teach the Good Night Book Club. I said, okay, I won't study at night and I will go to the bed. I will stop for several months. And finally one day I was so happy you came into my dream and you taught me a lot. I was so happy. And you said everything in English so I didn't understand. So after I got up, I realized I still have to study. I have to study English. Otherwise I won't understand. Then someone told me maybe find a great teacher around you and start to learn Diamond Way with them. Then I realized maybe some of them are already in western part of United States or they're moving to western part of United States and I had to go there. Anyway, so could you please give me some advice on choosing a teacher who can lead you on the completion of this Diamond Way and help more people. Thank you.]

Okay, good. I'll tell you a funny story. My teacher, so my Tibetan teacher, I met him 1975/1974? Something like that. He came to Princeton. He gave a talk about the heart sutra. And I went to the talk and he gave a talk at Columbia also. So I thought, well, I'd like to study with him and I went there. But I was, I had a different problem. I felt conflicted. I didn't feel he's my heart teacher. I studied with him. I lived with him for 25 years. I served him for 25 years. But I felt like a different person was my heart teacher. But that person I couldn't be close to. And I used to cry sometimes.

I used to sit in the house and cry because I couldn't be close to the one I felt was my heart teacher, which is my wife, Veronica. And so I used to be very conflicted. And then one day I remember he says, CHAM CHAM DRO. CHAM CHAM DRO means the monks go for a walk every afternoon. This is the total exercise for a monk.

So they said, let's CHAM CHAM DRO. And we went for a walk. And he had announced that he was going to give Bodhisattva vows. Then I was walking with him alone, and I said, can I ask you a question? He said, yeah. I said, I have someone I feel is my heart teacher, but I cannot be with them. It's not possible. And I don't know if I'm ready to take Bodhisattva vows from you. I lived with you, and you trained me everything. But I feel this connection to this other person. But there's no hope that I will ever be able to be with them. There's no possibility.

Then he said, wait.He said, don't take it this time. And I said, yeah, it feels more comfortable. So I didn't. The first time he offered it, I didn't take it. It was weird, because I was his number one student, and number two. And so I... Then later things worked out with my root lama. But I decided it's okay to take it from my... We call house teacher, the teacher who's close to you. We call Ne lama. Ne lama means like if you're Ukrainian, it's the teacher who speaks Ukrainian. Someone close to you. And represent your root teacher. You see what I mean?

So I had the same problem myself. I couldn't be with my root teacher, and I had a choice to study with another teacher who I feel good with. I feel honest. I trust them. And I feel, what do you call it, love between us. They're not my ultimate teacher. But they are certainly a great teacher.

So I went ahead and I took my empowerment from my house teacher, and I took my Bodhisattva vows from my house teacher. And I kind of dedicated it to be with my root teacher. And that worked out for me. That worked for me. I served my house teacher for 25 [years]. I built his house. I suffered. I cooked for eight years. Poor guy. Because I'm a terrible cook. And I did hard things. Really, really hard things. But I served him very well. And then I believe because of that I was able to be with my heart teacher.

So I would say in my own experience, if you can be with your heart teacher... When I met that teacher, my house teacher, I met a very, very high teacher in India. And they said, you're so lucky, there's a great Geshe near Princeton, 45 minutes from Princeton. You just get in the car and go for 45 minutes. So I went. It's a 45-minute drive. And then I stayed there for 25 years. And they said, go meet him. I think you should study with him. And I believe that serving my house teacher created the chance for me to live with my heart teacher. Okay? I think it's a wonderful strategy. And so I respected him, and I served him hard. I worked like a dog. I was cleaning everything all day. I did everything for 25 years. And I think it created the chance to be with my heart teacher. So I think that's wonderful. I think that's a good strategy. And I like it. Okay? Thank you.

Thank you. Just promise me Tim won't sing at the end. Thank you. It should just about pay off my debt to Five Houses.

[Tim: So, Geshehla, this is an offering from all of the students here. And of course, we represent all of the students who are online as well from Diamond Mountain as well. And please stay. Please keep teaching us. Let's get that kidney as soon as possible. Please stay and teach, and please come back to Diamond Mountain. Thank you.]

By the way, the kidney thing is in the next year probably? I don't know. And I'll get a new kidney. It's funny because you get, then you have three kidneys. They don't take out the old one. So, I will be better than you guys. And it's unknown when it will be. It's unknown how it will be. It's not sure. It's a very complicated thing. But I think it'll be alright. So, I don't think you have to worry about it. I have to stay for six weeks near the hospital. And then I can just do whatever I want to do. Okay? 

And I will be operating at 800% more than before. Okay? Seriously. So, it's okay. Don't worry about it. Don't worry.

100 bucks. Every time I come to Diamond Mountain, I like to donate some money to the local staff, the staff at [Diamond Mountain]. They're cleaning for us. It's a hard, hard job. Even easier in New Jersey than here to serve all of us. It's a hard job all year long. So, I'd like to encourage everybody to make an offering to help. This is a donation to the Diamond Mountain staff. So, I encourage all of you to give something. It's not enough to pay them, but it's enough to thank them. And they will feel your love for them. That's the important thing. Okay. Thank you, guys.